When Richie Sadlier arrived into the MNS office on Bank Holiday Monday afternoon he was tense.
He had come to the RTÉ studios directly from Richmond Park and the EA Sports League Cup game between Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick's Athletic. Pat's had lost, again.
Richie is chief executive of St Pat's and is learning fast how tough it is to head up a football company in these tough times. The day before business couldn't have gone better as former Saint Keith Fahey inspired Birmingham City to promotion and the megabucks Premier League.
Fahey has been a revelation in the English game but his skill and commitment comes as no surprise to those of us here who watched him in the red and white at Inchicore. Scoring goals and creating them too, no doubt, Fahey will get an international call up soon and all this is good news for everyone at Richmond Road.
St Patrick's Athletic earned themselves almost another €100,000 thanks to Fahey's significant part in Birmingham's promotion and all in all it was a good bit of business for the Saints and Richie Sadlier.
Some might say that Fahey was a steal for Birmingham but the market is the market and until home based players are deemed good enough for the international squad while they are still here our best players will continue to go for a song.
It will be wonderful to watch Fahey in the big time next season and to see how he compares with Keith Andrews, Glenn Whelan, Darron Gibson and the rest.
Sadlier though, has more pressing problems at Inchicore. In the close season Pat's let Johnny McDonnell go because the set-up at Inchicore, we were told, would not be full-time.
Then Jeff Kenna and Paul Peschisolido arrive as the new management team leaving Galway United fans with a bad taste in the mouth as Kenna had claimed he wanted to stay with the Tribesmen, whose Premier Division status he had secured on the last day of the season. This was no mean feat in Kenna's first gig in management.
Ironically, it is Galway who have been giving Kenna the harshest lessons in football management, thumping the Saints at home in the first game of the new season and repeating the dose last Friday at Terryland, while all the time Ian Foster claims his aim is to avoid relegation.
Pat's regard themselves as a big club and so they should but it seems remarkable that Galway are ahead of them in the table and that the Inchicore club should be thinking about launching the life-rafts so early in the season.
Jeff Kenna is under severe pressure and has admitted as much. Last season, Galway acted decisively and got rid of Tony Cousins early in the season before appointing Kenna and, although it seemed cruel at the time, Nick Leeson's action probably meant he did better for Galway United than he did for Barings Bank.
And so the spotlight turns to Sadlier, a smart, streetwise former pro. Sadlier's international honours or his time at Millwall helped him learn the game and his work as an agent will have brought him closer to the business end of the industry. However, as a working journalist he will also know the story. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
Sadlier's tenure as Chief Executive of St Pat's is inextricably linked with the performance of the manager that he and he alone appointed. The buck stops there.
Pat's have been prudent financially as all clubs have to be and they have also suffered horrendously from injuries, but these things are part and parcel of the modern game and the rules are the same for everyone from Bray Wanderers to Bohemians.
They simply have to start winning games. And if they can't manage that in the short term they must not lose them.
Richie has been a wonderful addition to the MNS couch from the launch of the show last year and his insight, intelligence and honesty is refreshing. Of course he got a grilling in the course of the programme and he was nervously expecting that beforehand.
Turning his phone off during the live broadcast filled him with dread because, as he put it himself, you never know what can happen in football. And they say a week is a long time in politics, what about an hour in a football world where success is demanded and gratification must be instant.
We did try to lighten the mood by suggesting that he had done a deal to shave the next time Pat's won a game but that was deemed to cruel for the live show.
It was my first time doing the show this season as Con Murphy was taking a well earned break in Tenerife and it was an enjoyable experience even if the pace of the programme seemed even faster than last season.
Well at least it was an enjoyable experience for me. I'm not so sure about Richie!
