On each occasion, I was flattered and thankful, and then took two and a half seconds to think it over.

No thank you.

Wild horses will need the help of half a dozen bulldozers . . . and the Tribune's rugby analyst Neil Francis might have to direct them all . . . before I ever again even come close to accepting an invitation to manage a county team.

My two years amongst friends in Carlow were enjoyable and enlightening, but mostly enlightening. I also had my eyes opened really, really wide. I resigned the position of Carlow senior football team manager in late July, thereby winning back 30 hours of my life each week.

That's the minimum amount of time I had spent driving from my home in west Dublin down to the county of my birth, and working in different football fields in and around Carlow town all evening and night long. Ridiculously, I had imagined that the 90-minute drive might be spent listening to RTE's Lyric FM and generally relaxing the old shoulders after a day's work and, at the same time, carefully sorting and slotting away my thoughts and intentions before each evening's training session. But, no.

From leaving my office . . . there was never any time to say hello or goodbye even to my wife and children . . . at 6.10pm each evening I would spend the next 90 minutes frying my brain with 20 to 25 different phone calls to and from players, selectors, county officials and anyone else who cared to pass over to me their problems on that particular day. My brain would be frazzled by the time I pulled into Dr Cullen Park and, then, the really hard work would start.

Thirty long hours but, you know what, I may as well have only been spending 30 minutes per week on the job. To make a difference in Carlow . . . apart from beating Offaly in the championship in the summer of 2005, and whacking Wicklow in the championship by nine points in 2006 . . . I'd have to have been putting in 60 hours each and every week.

That's the Gospel truth.

In the middle of last week, GAA president Nickey Brennan took me by surprise when he shorttracked the beatification of Brian Cody and Jack O'Connor, and hooshed them down the road towards GAA sainthood. By singling out the All Ireland-winning managers and saying they did not receive payment, Brennan took a swipe at the throng of faceless managers, at club and county level, who are taking extra-chunky expenses for coaching teams.

I don't know for sure how long Cody and O'Connor spend during their waking hours preparing and working with the Kilkenny and Kerry squads. But, you can safely bet it is a big 6 and 0 hours each week.

And, sure, if every county in Ireland had men of Brian's and Jack's abilities, and had them in the palm of their hand and they were willing to work for free, what a happy, perfect world we all would be living in . . . and, undoubtedly, Nickey Brennan might wet himself with happiness at just how deeply and decently amateur our national games are and will remain forever more.

But life ain't that perfect, Mr President. And before I explain just how imperfect GAA life actually is, can I just go off-message for one moment and make a little personal confession: I come out in a nasty rash every time I hear a 'full-time' GAA official, like our president for instance, lecture us masses on the importance of remaining amateur. I come out in orange and blue and yellow spots.

When the GAA chooses to disclose exactly how much over one quarter of a million euro its director general Liam Mulvihill receives in his entire employment package each year, and when the exact six-figure packages which Danny Lynch and Dermot Power and all of their colleagues in Croke Park are revealed, then, and only then, will my rash die down.

Maybe Nickey Brennan could delay his midweek crusade and present us with all of this information. The members of an amateur organisation, which is demanding transparency from all of its constituent parts, deserve to know where their money is going? Yes? No? And how much is going to whom?

Once Croker's salaries and hefty packages are clearly and beautifully presented to us then, sure thing, next on the list can come those club and county managers who are also earning a living by 'working' for the GAA. Brennan's right. There are a great many managers working full-time and parttime for the GAA. He knows dozens of them, same as GAA presidents before him knew dozens and dozens of such individuals. I know dozens of them too. There is hardly a man or woman or child in the GAA who does not either know somebody who is receiving payment as a manager, or who knows somebody who knows somebody who is receiving such a payment.

It's been a part of GAA life all of my adult years . . . and that's one year over a quarter of a century, folks. So, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about here. And if these payments were not being made then the GAA would not be as strong as it is today the length and breadth of the country. And the association would be poorer, much poorer as a consequence.

Clubs and counties do not pay managers very attractive expenses just so that they can have fun being shady, and working 'underground'. They actually do it for all the right reasons. They do so out of an undying love for Gaelic football and hurling, and they do so because they are possessed by a serious ambition and sense of pride.

And they also do so out of sheer desperation in many, many cases.

Three-quarters of the clubs in every county in Ireland, and four-fifths of the counties, are down on their luck. Some of these same clubs and counties are actually worse off . . . they're dead and buried.

Breathing new life into them is not easy, and therefore it does not come cheap.

If the GAA wants to have decent income at club level, and if it wants to attract big-time TV money and sponsorship at county level, then it needs to maximise the number of teams which are truly competitive. It needs strong blood, and new blood. The GAA is relying on men, particularly at senior intercounty level, to put their family lives and working lives on hold . . . and it is asking them to risk shame and ridicule in this crazy, demented age when every single club and county out there is demanding success of some kind or another.

What I discovered over the last few weeks, as the phone calls from counties came in thick and fast, is that there are very few good men willing to manage county teams anymore. Mid- and lower-tier counties are shaking the trees, but only the same few names fall out every year.

Carlow, for instance, has been turned down by almost 10 people . . . I know, because I've been shaking the trees myself and making phone calls, and trying to locate my successor. Meath and Offaly, both still high-ranking, self-respecting counties, have phoned me (while I was phoning other people). Even Meath and Offaly struggled to use up the fingers on one hand when they counted out the names of serious people interested in becoming senior football team managers.

That's how serious the situation really is, and that's how difficult it is for the GAA to find good men. And the GAA must face up to this fact of life.

The GAA should allow counties to appoint fulltime, adequately paid managers. It's the next logical, and necessary step. Christ, we've got full-time people in Croke Park, and we've got full-time people in provincial counties and in county boards.

What's the big deal, boys?

Are these 'pen-pushers', ultimately, going to see to it that the TV money and the sponsorship cheques, which the association now badly needs and, indeed, survives upon, keeps rolling in?

Wakey, wakey, Nickey! It's time for you to be bold and strong, not dull and repetitive. Be like Sean Kelly, and make it your mission to kick this dinosaur up the backside, in a good way. Sean Kelly opened up Croke Park for the people of Ireland.

Nickey Brennan could, if he wishes, open up the association's eyes, officially, to the fact that payments are being made to team bosses, and that these payments need to be legitimised.