He's a brave man.

Me? I don't know whether O'Dwyer's yearly travelling expenses usually total 10,001 or 100,001. All I've heard is that the man loves driving as much as he loves the 'old game' itself.

Who knows? Who cares?

The GAA is paying too much money to pen pushers, and is wasting far too much money on wet cement, and whatever sum of money Mick O'Dwyer has been taking home with him after traipsing the roads of Kildare and Laois, on and off over the last 15 years, is a mere drop in the ocean of GAA revenue. Good for you, Micko.

Every penny and cent you received has been well earned and thoroughly deserved.

It looks like Wicklow . . . the county ranked 31st in the country (Kilkenny are killjoys and couldn't bother their arse playing football at senior level) . . . will be O'Dwyer's end game.

He tells us he'll stay one year, for sure.

No promises after that. Though, personally, I think he might stay for two or three years in his new, favourite county in all of Ireland.

His appointment as Wicklow boss happened quickly, but it has not happened overnight either. The press conference in one of Dublin's plusher hotels last week had all the trappings of a wellplanned and expertly-crafted 'launch' . . .

Ballymore Homes-style.

Ballymore, for those of you who do not give tuppence for such matters, is one of the great . . . if not the greatest . . . success stories in Irish and European property.

And the man behind Ballymore is Sean Mulryan.

Sean Mulryan sat in on the press conference which announced Mick O'Dwyer as the new Wicklow senior football manager, and Ballymore as the Wicklow sponsors. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was every bit as significant as Micko himself showing up in the hotel.

Mulryan is a busy, gutsy, courageous man who does not waste his time . . . not that he has very much time to waste. He gives his company's name, and his true affections, to his native Roscommon, but Sean now lives in Wicklow.

Nevertheless, you may ask, just as you are asking why is Micko bothering with Wicklow . . . why is Sean Mulryan giving his new county the time of day? And why did he offer up a day out of his US President-type schedule, or even half a day, to Wicklow? Not too sure.

I've only met Sean Mulryan twice in my life. Each time it was a pleasure. And each time he was polite, down-to-earth, decent and simply interesting company . . . though I was not acquainted to the point where I was invited to his 50th birthday party.

At that sumptuous gathering, one or two years past, one guest later informed me that as he was dancing with his wife late into the evening, it occurred to him that the singer on duty was the spitting image of Debbie Harry. Then, of course, he noticed that the backing band also looked just like the three or four lads from Debbie's band, Blondie.

Every 50 year-old Irish male, if life was fair, deserves to have Debbie Harry sing at his birthday party! Sean Mulryan is a magical individual who is making amazing things happen in cities all over Europe, it seems to me. So, why not Wicklow?

Put Mulryan and O'Dwyer together and, suddenly, there is no outstanding reason why Wicklow can not. . . No, I'm not going to say get to a Leinster final.

However, there's no reason why Wicklow can not pull up their socks.

I speak as the former manager of a Carlow team which, early this summer, were leading Wicklow by 15 points early in the second half of the first round of the Leinster championship, and pulled up to win by nine. Wicklow, that day, had an average defence, a poor midfield, and an awful forward division. Worse still, Wicklow played an absolutely dire game of football, despite the fact that they were being managed by Hugh Kenny, one of the best and hardest working young managers in the game.

It was a strange afternoon. It looked like three-quarters of the Wicklow team had been on the beer the night before.

They certainly didn't look anything like the Wicklow team I had watched on tape, as I had analysed their performances in the preceding National League campaign.

Wicklow lost six out of seven games in last year's league, but five out of six of those defeats were by either one or two points. And in one of these one-point defeats . . . to a Westmeath team who would beat Galway by one point in the championship a couple of months later in Cusack Park . . . Wicklow had the game 'won' for 65 minutes.

Personally, I'm delighted for Wicklow, and I'm going to be one of their many new fans in the year ahead. Wouldn't it be fantastic if they actually got to a Leinster final sometime in the next two or three years? Add to Mulryan and O'Dwyer, former scoring genius Kevin O'Brien who is one of O'Dwyer's selectors, and there is little doubt that the county will have one of the richest and smartest back-room teams in the province.

O'Brien was an unbelievably talented, free-thinking forward in his day, and everyone who has watched him as a coach with St Patrick's in Tullow over the last two years (and winning a Carlow intermediate championship into the bargain) is convinced he is also an outstanding county manager in the making.

So can the footballers in the county pull up their socks? That's the first, really major question, folks. Oh, and is Micko past it? Another question which might be considered of some importance. Let's address the second question first. O'Dwyer is a crafty auld divil. But over the last decade he has been going head-tohead with a modern game which has become increasingly high-tech and highly-professional, long before a ball is kicked into the air. The Laois lads weren't delighted with Micko's view of life over the last year or so. They loved the man, and they responded to him and what he represented. But they felt, by and large, that the O'Dwyer formula was slightly out of date. The Laois lads wanted more . . . and they felt that O'Dwyer was giving them less of the sophisticated and scientific back-up which is perfectly normal for half a dozen of the very best teams in the country.

Liam Kearns is a wet week into the job of succeeding Micko, and he is already putting in place physical demands and objectives off the field (and in the gymnasium) which did not properly exist in Laois over the last three years. The Wicklow boys will not know the difference.

They'll think O'Dwyer is marvellous, and if they eat and drink and pump weights like serious athletes then they will undoubtedly win games early on in this new era. But what happens after that? If the Wicklow footballers pull up their socks, as they will (that's my first question answered), can Micko at 70 years of age put on a whole new show.

Mick O'Dwyer, really, had nothing more to give Laois over the last 12 months. He looked dead on his feet, and the team ended up breathing new life and waves of enthusiasm into their manager. Wicklow will need a Plan B, and the county must have it ready to implement as soon as O'Dwyer tires, or disappears.

It could be Kevin O'Brien. Or, it could be Sean Boylan or John O'Mahony, or somebody else with a clearer focus, stepping right into Micko's shoes. Sean Mulryan did not get to where he is today, as the outstanding market leader in the Irish property business, by clicking his fingers.

It has taken him time, it has taken him negotiation, and it has taken him two decades of hard work, and more hard work with good people all around him.

Mick O'Dwyer will start the change in Wicklow. The biggest question of all, and the one the county board and the people of Wicklow should already be asking themselves, is who will complete the change?