We're nearing the end of the most frenetic round of managerial speed dating anyone can remember and three Division 1 teams still haven't found a partner.
As it stands, none of Monaghan, Donegal or Roscommon, all operating in the top tier in 2023, have a manager on board.
Monaghan, the great over-achievers of the 2010s, have experienced a bruising off-season, getting knocked back a couple of times. We've already heard tell of how Jason Sherlock was nailed on for the role before that talk fizzled out. Then Ger Brennan was about to dip his toe in inter-county managerial waters until word filtered through that this too was off.
In Donegal, meanwhile, preferred candidate Malachy O'Rourke has made clear he's not going there. In another of those potential retro moves that are all the rage this autumn - in both hurling and football - 1992 hero Martin McHugh is being floated as a likely candidate, a full quarter of a century after he last managed at senior inter-county level.
Why such indifference among the potential pool of inter-county managers for these two posts? We are, after all, not talking about Division 4 stragglers, where apathy abounds and a prospective boss might have to spend much of his time bogged down in financial matters, so the team can get to and from Ruislip in modest comfort.
These are two long established occupants of the top tier. Monaghan have previously been branded the cockroaches of Division 1 football (a deep compliment, needless to say), surviving there year on year, despite a few close shaves and the great Conor McManus now hitting 35.
Perhaps the inter-county managerial community don't like the look of their trajectory. That there's a nagging sense that here are two outfits whose best days are behind them - in the medium term, at least.
Donegal, whose best ever player turned 33 last month, have been treading water, at best, since the turn of the decade. Their exit from the 2022 championship was especially dismal and had almost an air of finality about it.
The angst about filling the role isn't so acute in Roscommon, where a couple of names have been circulating to replace Anthony Cunningham.
Pat Flanagan, a veteran of the inter-county circuit, was initially pegged as a shoo-in for the Rossies job, having last year guided Padraig Pearses to a Connacht club title.
This was originally presented as a fait accompli, with Flanagan said to be finalising his backroom team for his return to inter-county management. However, doubts have begun to emerge, with decision-makers in the county having their heads turned by the exploits of a former wing-forward Don Connellan, who guided Moycullen to a historic first Galway SFC title during the Covid year of 2020.
The surprising sluggishness around the competition for the vacant managerial posts in Monaghan and Donegal is, of course, not replicated elsewhere.
Mayo, the Gaelic football county that never sleeps, have just conducted a managerial search so high-powered it resembled an American Presidential election primary. It became apparent early that they weren't merely appointing a new manager but an entire administration. One half expected some local fanatic to make a public plea for TV debates so as to properly separate the contenders and put everyone's mind at ease about their bona fides.
Kevin McStay, having been rebuffed in painful circumstances before, stole a march on the competition by letting it be known the names of his intimidatingly A-list backroom team, which included former boss Stephen Rochford (the man who took Mayo closer to an All-Ireland title than any other in the television era), his regular mucca and county legend Liam McHale, and revered coaching guru Donie Buckley, who seems to wind up back in Mayo every couple of years.
McStay's rivals for the post scrambled to follow suit, announcing their own list of names. Ray Dempsey, Mayo's officially designated goalscorer from 1992 to 1996, unveiled Oisín McConville, Keith Higgins and Declan O'Keefe among his list of helpers. It was all to no avail.
And so McStay, who previously announced his retirement from inter-county management altogether after leaving the Roscommon post four years ago, finally gets a shot at the job he's most coveted, 27 years after first applying.
Perhaps the bulging backroom teams jockeying for consideration in Mayo give us a hint as to why certain other counties are struggling to fill roles.
These days, some of the brightest minds in Gaelic football are clustering around a coterie of elite counties, happy to serve as an influential underling, without all the attendant pressure that comes from being the boss.
Stephen Rochford, Cian O'Neill and Paddy Tally have all served as inter-county managers themselves but now seem happier to act as backroom operators, spoken of but not speaking to the media, rather than becoming a head honcho elsewhere, with all the hassle that might entail.
Nowadays, there's a particular cachet to being identified as the coaching power behind the throne anyway.
It was back in 1974 that Kevin Heffernan more or less single-handedly introduced the cult of the manager to the GAA. Post Paul Kinnerk, we seem to be living in the age of the cult of the backroom coaching whizz.
It was another marker of the cleavage within the game between the elite and the rest that a couple of Tailteann Cup counties recruited their own inter-county managers from the 'spillover' from the Mayo process.
McConville's surprise appointment as Wicklow manager will impact on several media outlets. Without wishing Oisín any ill in his endeavours, there are TV and podcast producers who are probably consoling themselves with the thought that Wicklow's summers are usually short enough.
Even Longford, who only installed Billy O'Loughlin at the eleventh and a half hour last year, got their managerial appointment squared away 10 days ago, former Dublin defender and Ballymun hero Paddy Christie taking on the job. Like McConville, he had been name-checked in the Mayo search, former Castlebar manager Declan Shaw listing him in his pitch.
As regards the management merry-go around, we appear to be in the foothills of a Dublin craze. The reports to emerge from Monaghan's frustrating manager search bear all this out.
We had the age of the nomadic Kerry managerial guru before. Back in the noughties, post Micko's exploits in Kildare, the flat plains of Leinster were full of Kerrymen, seeking to instruct the locals in the mysterious ways of winning football. The apogee of this period was the 2004 Leinster final, when Páidí and Micko faced each other across the sideline in successive weekends. (Laois have had no fewer than six Kerrymen manage them in the 21st century).
Nowadays, there's a hunger to pick the brains of the Dublin 2010s generation. Philly McMahon disclosed recently in his Independent column that he was randomly offered the senior inter-county job at an unnamed county, and upon turning it down he was immediately asked whether any of his teammates would be interested. (We're reminded again of Nick Poppelwell's verdict (to Tom English) on Murray Kidd's period in charge of the Irish rugby team - "In fairness, he had a New Zealand passport and if you had one of those at that stage then it was enough.")
The outstanding counties, Monaghan, Donegal, Roscommon and Westmeath - where Jack Cooney recently departed - may have to look closer to home for willing applicants.
