"Rodge to Enda Kenny's Podge", "Comrade Rabbitte", "a throwback to the 80s" and "Pyongyang regarder" . . . Fianna Fail ministers certainly didn't pull their punches. They even took out and dusted down the old "Mr 10%" jibe that the British used to throw at Gerry Adams in the mid-1990s, just to emphasise Labour's vertically challenged position in the opinion polls. That had to hurt.

A tough campaigner with one of the sharpest tongues in politics, Rabbitte won't be intimidated by the targeting but he could be forgiven for feeling sorry for himself after a bizarre couple of months.

A few months back, Rabbitte's brave strategy of exclusively aligning himself with Fine Gael to provide a real alternative looked like it just might be working. With the government looking jaded and accident-prone, the impossible task of overhauling Fianna Fail's huge Dail advantage was beginning to look possible. But that was before 'Bertiegate' and the subsequent surge in support for the Taoiseach and Fianna Fail. That the Taoiseach emerged stronger and more popular from a crisis that could have unseated him must have been shattering for the two opposition parties.

"The guy is a genius, " one Labour source, who would not normally be an admirer of the Taoiseach, lamented this weekend. But the same source took hope from the Fianna Fail sledging of Rabbitte last Saturday. "They mustn't be quite as confident as the opinion polls would suggest they should be, " he said.

The reason for the attacks on Rabbitte was hard to understand. Was it aimed at attracting those people who, as the saying goes, 'think Labour, but vote Fianna Fail'? Was it an attempt to drive a wedge between Rabbitte and the traditionalists in the party who are less than enamoured with his style of leadership and close links with Fine Gael? Or was it, as one Fianna Fail source observed, not co-ordinated at all and simply "a rush of blood to the head" in all the excitement of the ardfheis?

Fianna Fail generally avoids the trap of talking too much about opposing parties and making them the story, but arguably it didn't last weekend. "Attacking Pat is the wrong way [of exploiting divisions in Labour]. It will simply cause people to rally around him. It's interesting that Bertie didn't attack Pat. If you want people to think Labour is a beaten docket, but instead you attack them, as if they are a threat, that's counter-productive, " one close observer said.

The result is that people were again talking about Pat Rabbitte last week after a period where some in the party believe his profile had dipped.

There is a view in Labour that Rabbitte, an excellent Dail performer, needs to start getting out on the streets more and begin fighting the election.

The fear is that the politician who is really showing the hunger, energy and drive at the moment is not Rabbitte or Kenny but the Taoiseach. "The energy you see on the TV screens is coming from Bertie, " one source complained.

In many ways that is understandable. It is not unusual to see a new spring in the step of a reprieved man, and Rabbitte and Kenny must be wondering what Ahern would have to do wrong to put a dent in his extraordinary popularity. The two opposition leaders had an impossible task during the Bertiegate controversy. Should they go for the jugular, running the risk of alienating an electorate that likes Ahern, or should they treat him with kid gloves, leaving themselves open to accusations that they let the Taoiseach off the hook?

The view among at least some in the opposition parties is that they "fell between two stools" and pulled their punches, with one source commenting: "If they had decided on day one that it was a fundamental issue of principle involved and to go for him, I don't know if it would have done more good but I can't see how they would have done worse. And least they would have felt better about themselves".

That is history now and Rabbitte and Kenny have seven months to bridge the clear gulf in the polls. One experienced political strategist believes Labour is not producing enough clear policy documents for fear of highlighting its differences with Fine Gael. "The result is only leading people not to make up their minds.

There are lots of areas that would be to Labour's advantage to start a debate on . . . for example, the appropriate level of funding for the health service . . . but there is no debate on these issues, " he said.

Some in the Labour party worry that voters don't know what the party stands for. However, both Rabbitte and Kenny have some shrewd strategists around them and there is still time to change that.

Besides, fretting is by no means confined to the opposition. The concern within Fianna Fail is that the party has peaked too soon and that Rabbitte and Kenny will inevitably come back at them in the coming months.