Tom Carr's emergence as Dublin's new manager is surprising only in its timing and the accelerating momentum with which it happened over the last two weeks. The speed of his appointment's progress from the realm of speculation to the out-tray took most observers aback, but the 34-year-old army man presents sound prima facie credentials for one of the - if not the - most pressurised management jobs in football or hurling.

Followers of Carr's commentaries in the Irish Independent and on RTE will recognise a sharp football intellect and a bluntness in coming to the point, both characteristics useful in a manager. Among journalists he has long been recognised for the quality of his observations and the intensity of his critical analysis.

Ironically, given the allegations that John O'Leary's candidacy for the Dublin job suffered because of the candour of his biography, Carr has a longer and more aggressive record of anti-officialdom.

Initial reaction to the appointment has focused on his playing career and the perceptions are uniform: a wholehearted player who achieved inter-county eminence by dint of perspiration rather than inspiration, and a thoughtful, intense personality not always simpatico with his playing colleagues or with those in authority.

The one element of his personality that will play a role in Carr's likely performance as a manager is that of distance. It was distance that characterised most of the key moments in his playing career and ultimately ensured his success over O'Leary, who was seen as too close to the current panel.

From the moment he arrived at his first Dublin training session under Kevin Heffernan, Carr was aware of that distance. Although he was born and reared in Dublin and had played minor for the county in 1980, there was still a question mark over Carr's provenance because his father was a Tipperaryman.

After his parents moved back home, he briefly played for the county and his younger brother Declan went on to captain Tipp to a hurling All-Ireland. "I wasn't a Tipperaryman playing for Dublin," he later recalled. "Declan was a Dub playing for Tipp." But Heffernan sought - and got - assurances on the matter.

After his inter-county career began in the forwards and was disrupted by a spell of UN service in the Lebanon, he settled at the end of the 1980s into the Dublin halfback line from where he captained the team that won the 1991 League in Paddy Cullen's first year as manager.

The two years that followed encapsulated his career. Traumatic defeat by Meath after the four first-round matches in 1991 was marked by an agonised, introspective speech from Carr in a reception at the Mansion House. His intensity found few echoes amongst other players at the reception and the distance was again obvious.

A year later, he was back at the same location in equally miserable circumstances. Administrative complacency had failed to cancel an open-top bus tour for Dublin after the 1992 All-Ireland final which had been humiliatingly lost to Donegal.

By his own admission, Carr and other players were embarrassed at being paraded in front of baffled commuters. Back at the Mansion House, he was quick to rebut Lord Mayor Gay Mitchell's attempted consolation that 30 other counties would have been happy to be in Dublin's place.

"No one would want to swap places with us," said Carr at the reception, "because no one wants to be a loser."

His role in spelling out to the county board that manager Paddy Cullen had lost the confidence of the players was a factor, he believed, in his losing the captaincy when Pat O'Neill succeeded Cullen. The subordination didn't help his standing with the county board either.

It was another demonstration that year of self-sacrifice on Carr's behalf. He played the 1992 championship at corner back, a position he disliked, because it was believed to be in the team's interest.

Increasingly, he became disillusioned - frustrated at the antics of some players and unhappy with management - over the following years. He resented losing the captaincy and dismissed any suggestion that his performances had benefitted from the move. By now he was being deployed at centre forward in an effort to bring some wit to the attack.

In general the experiment was going well, but disaster struck in the National Football League final in 1993 when he was sent off for kicking Donegal's Brian Murray off the ball. A long suspension effectively ended his career and after watching from the sidelines another harrowing big-match defeat in the 1994 All-Ireland final, Tom Carr ended his Dublin career a few months later.

That career has now been resurrected and all the traits that never quite fulfilled his playing days - intensity, clear-thinking and an unyielding competitiveness - will be deployed at a different level and for high stakes.