What a difference a week can make in politics. After losing the party's brightest star (in terms of public perception), Enda Kenny's position looked extremely shaky with party figures openly talking about how he had to up his game or face the consequences.

But who remembers such talk now? It's Willie O'Dea, not Enda Kenny, who has got the chop after a dreadful week for the government that saw the Greens publicly wrestling with their collective conscience and Fianna Fáil TDs going awol during votes.

And it's wasn't just an awful week for the government, it was also a very good week for Fine Gael. Unlike with John O'Donoghue, it was Kenny's party, and not Labour, that did the running on the attack on O'Dea. Senator Eugene Regan had been diligently ploughing a lonely furrow on the story for some time and it proved the perfect antidote for Fine Gael's blues the previous week. The party must not have been able to believe its luck that the issue took off in the way it did.

There was grumbling in the Labour Party benches initially that Fine Gael had moved too quickly last week with the confidence motion in O'Dea, allowing Fianna Fáil the opportunity to nip the whole matter in the bud by quickly holding the confidence motion.

But it actually worked out perfectly. Cowen's tactic backfired. It all happened so quickly that the Greens felt they had been bounced into a decision and were therefore well within their rights to revisit it.

O'Dea was vanquished and while it was the Greens that ultimately dictated his fate, Fine Gael had helped push the junior party into a corner on the issue. Regan, Charlie Flanagan, Alan Shatter, Brian Hayes and Michael D'Arcy all performed strongly during the week. And so, it should be said, did their leader.

The 'real Enda' was officially unveiled on Wednesday morning with a barnstorming display in the Dáil that clearly went down well with the troops seated behind him. It also went down well with Enda himself who couldn't stop himself from brimming with delight at how good his new improved version sounded.

There was an extra decibel or two in the voice and a shade more testosterone in the delivery. He sounded for all the world like Howard Beale, the character in Network who galvanised the nation with his "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" outburst.

Come to think of it, he also sounded a bit like George Lee in those early, heady days when he was going to save the country.

In an era where anger is the new black, the new approach will probably go down with the voters and, to be fair, it was particularly appropriate last week.

The worry for Fine Gael is that, even after last week's events, it could still be more than two years to an election and it will be hard for Enda to stay angry for that period of time. It could also get more than a little wearing for the general public, who might decide they don't really believe in his passion.

Anger, it should also be pointed out, won't make you an expert on economics and it won't help if you can't answer questions about water charges or why you won't go into government with Sinn Féin.

But better preparation will and the complacency that seemed to have crept into Enda's performances certainly won't be repeated – that is quite clear from his demeanour. Then again if the government continues to shoot itself in the foot on a weekly basis it really won't matter which Enda turns up – old Enda, new Enda, real Enda, continuity Enda, 'I can't believe it's not Enda' – Fine Gael will be home and hosed regardless.

For the first time in a long, long time, the government had Fine Gael on the ropes 12 days ago and how does it respond? It dropped its hands to its side and proceeded to invite two sweet upper cuts to the chin and nearly ended up being knocked out in the process. To lose Déirdre de Búrca after the Lee affair was unfortunate, to lose Willie O'Dea on top of that was just downright careless.

Commentator Noel Whelan was right to question how there had been such a complete lack of preparation within government to deal with Williegate, given that it had been flagged two months ago that this issue was going to arise at some point.

How, for example, was O'Dea allowed get up and give the speech that he did in the Dáil on Wednesday?

How were the Greens so ill-prepared? Okay, the motion of confidence was moved at top speed and they are hugely busy people, but there had been enough coverage of this issue in the media to allow them get familiar with the issues in around a half and hour.

It brings to mind the old adage trotted out by Roy Keane: 'Fail to prepare, prepare to fail'.

The government is regularly accused of failing to show leadership when in fact, unlike during the Ahern era, it has repeatedly taken hugely unpopular but necessary decisions over the past 18 months or so. But it can't expect to get any credit for that if it continues to keep stepping on avoidable political landmines. At this rate, Enda Kenny won't even need to up his game: he simply needs to avoid getting run over by a bus to become Taoiseach.

scoleman@tribune.ie