GENTLEMENwith real style and personality, and daring . . . most of all daring . . . are rare enough in sport, and you'd need to be a birdwatcher with especially good glasses to spot one or two of them on a GAA sideline. Take John O'Mahony this week. Nice guy, great manager, and a man who's achieved everything in his chosen sporting field, but heaven help us. It's only the National League, but every single game which has come and gone has had John tipping his cap to the opposition, and apologising on behalf of himself and his team for taking up their time.

Same this week, as Dublin prepare to get on the bus for Castlebar. John's been ducking and diving, seeing can he get Caffrey and co to drop their guard an inch or two, which is all very tiresome at this time of year. Sure, Mayo have a fine, lengthy injury list, but they're trundling along fine for this time of year. There's only one manager I genuinely feel sorry for amongst the 31 still standing their ground in the NFL, and that's Charlie Mulgrew.

In the two years before, and the two years after, reaching an All Ireland semi-final with little old, unfashionable and undernourished Fermanagh, he's burst a gut to make all the difference in the lives of a smallish bunch of footballers, and their families and neighbours, and now this. Division Three, here we come.

Most of the chatter about the five rounds of the league already completed has been about Tyrone and Armagh, and the early season hardships being met by Mickey Harte and Joe Kernan.

I like Joe Kernan, he's a breath of fresh air, and he seldom if ever apologises to any man or team before any game, for anything. I'm also Vice President of the Mickey Harte Fan Club, as some of you will know if you've read this column now and again. And I don't believe the events of the last few weeks forewarn us that either individual might be in real danger of running out of steam or serious ambition. The two teams in their charge, however, are reaching the end of a quite normal four- or five-year run which happens to every team in every sport, amateur and professional.

That run consists of two years of building up speed, one year believing that you might actually have a chance of going places, and one or two years settling in at the very top of your game. Then everyone gets tired and sore, and really, really bitchy (a strong feminine side suddenly appears in tiring football teams) with one another and football life in general. Some lads say sod it, and others think they're ready to go on another run. Most, like 90 per cent of them, eventually end up giving up.

In Armagh and Tyrone it's nearly over for two great teams, though it will be intriguing to see if one or both of them, in what appears to have the makings of a weak and wide-open summer of Gaelic football, can actually keep it all together and slip into another All Ireland final. I don't think there's a ghost of a chance of either of them winning an All Ireland in 2007.

Charlie Mulgrew doesn't have any chance, or any choice, I'm afraid. Fermanagh are heading for Division Three, deep in the belly of the NFL, and we might not see or hear from them for quite some time. Fermanagh started off on their run the same time as Tyrone and Armagh, and they did a phenomenal amount of good work in keeping pace with their two giant neighbours, on and off, and beating Armagh in the 2004 All Ireland quarter-final.

The team and their manager were not quite glorious, but they were heroic, and it would be wrong, very shameful in truth, if they slipped out of sight without us all saying goodbye and thanks to them.

Mulgrew, I hope, soon lands a new role, in a big county, with extra-large ambition to match his own giant heart. Imagine, for one second, Charlie getting the Dublin job at the end of this year. The job looks like it will be available, but Charlie will not get it.

When Fermanagh were about to gallop past Armagh in their All Ireland quarterfinal, or before they went the full 12 rounds with Mayo, twice, in the semi-final, I'm told by someone who was there that Charlie Mulgrew invited some of his defenders to choose the man they wished to mark the following Sunday. Don't know if it was true or not, but I like to think of it as being gospel.

This higher octane than usual National League is certainly putting the pressure on early. Some teams seem to be in bits, and some managers just do not have their acts together.

In the division two groupings, we're watching two genuine horse races . . . 2A has Monaghan, Roscommon, Offaly and Longford exactly where they should be, safely in their 1, 2, 3 and 4 positions, and there's no sign of Seamus McEneaney looking over his shoulder. In 2B we have Cavan, Meath and Wexford also holding nothing back and, exactly where they should be . . . though Wexford, if Paul Bealin was building up the correct amount of momentum, should not be on the shoulder of Colm Coyle. It's surprising and disappointing Wexford are not top of that grouping.

The same can not be said of 1A, where Donegal and Mayo are going hard and Dublin are well placed in third for a team going at three-quarter pace, and 1B where only two points separate the top six teams. In Divison 2B there has been mediocrity and a real early season malaise at work. If any one of these 1B teams were in their sister division they would all be struggling to stay out of divisions two and three, when the leagues are reset in cement for 2008.

Even Charlie Mulgrew and Fermanagh would have enjoyed a more fruitful springtime, most surely, if they had been in this division. The breakdown of these two As and Bs were never fairly or decently thought out . . .

and it would have been just for the GAA to dispense with their overly fussy 'deconstruction' and 'reconstruction' of the four NFL divisions.

Simply, the GAA might have taken a bold, dictatorial step and rebranded Divisions 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B as 'provisional' Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 4. After that, all we would have needed this springtime was the usual twoup and two-down system. That would have got everyone's backs up, but it would also have made perfect sense. Meanwhile, in a rapidly short period of time, Fermanagh are going to find themselves a million miles removed from Croke Park and the summer of 2004