DRAPlER has been saying it for over a year now - even when nobody else was. This game is not over yet. It's still all there to play for and the election campaign will be the crucial factor. The campaign and whichever way a bit of luck goes.

And from Thursday's poll, the luck seems to be going John Bruton's way. That, and the return to basics by Mary Harney on water charges - never mind Bobby Molloy's £23 million which has put Fianna Fail on the spot and put the spotlight squarely on the viability of a Fianna Fail/ PD alliance. It's almost like stroke politics in reverse and as little likely to succeed.

What Thursday's poll tells Drapier is that every vote will count. The national result will be determined by fifth and sixth preference votes in a range of constituency dogfights across the country.

The key elements will be national leadership, competence, the quality of candidates and effective voting pacts between the parties. Local factors will be important as never before - local problems and rows playing a crucial role in determining those last seats.

Drapier is still no wiser as to when that day will be. Like most of his colleagues, he spent the bulk of last week running around his constituency feeling at times like a headless chicken, knowing he should be doing something but not too certain quite what that something might be, feeling guilty if he rested and generally being a testy, bad-tempered pain in the neck to his nearest and dearest.

So Drapiers plea this weekend to John and Dick and Proinsias is to bring this phoney war to an end, tell us May or tell us October, but put us out of our misery one way or another. If they don't, half of us will end up in the divorce courts or in psychiatric wards.

The strange thing about it all is that once the real campaign starts, most of us spring back to life, find reserves of energy we never knew we had and even manage to enjoy ourselves. It's the waiting that causes the grief.

ONE man who won't have to worry is Godfrey Timmons. Godfrey has taken his time to make up his mind, but once made up there won't be any changing. There will be genuine regret in here at his decision not to run. There is no more decent a man in Leinster House than Godfrey - quiet, unassuming and decent.

When Godfrey spoke, people listened. His long experience, his closeness to the people he represented and his innate good judgment ensured his advice was always worth having and he could get to the heart of the matter in one or two short sentences.

Godfrey's decision means another respected stalwart will not be back. And more than that it creates real problems for Fine Gael in Wicklow. Unless the party can find a credible front-runner in a short time, the party's one seat could be under real pressure, even with the current good polls. With Shane Ross no longer in the reckoning and Tom Honan badly placed in Arklow, a strong name is needed, and Drapier can think of no better candidate than one of the next generation of the Timmon's family.

Meanwhile, the Progressive Democrat signing up of Tom Morrissey in Dublin West seems to have brought with it as many problems as it solves. Drapier listened to what Tom Morrissey had to say but for the life of him failed to find any great point of principle, certainly nothing that was not there when Morrissey signed on as a Fine Gael candidate a few weeks ago.

Whether Morrissey's "personal" vote is as sizeable as he seems to think it is we will have to wait and see but it was not all that much in evidence in last year's by-election, when Fine Gael got its core vote, no more no less. Ironically, the real winner in all this may well be Austin Currie who will now be rid of a hyper-competitive running mate and will have a clear run at the Fine Gael vote. Again Dublin West will be one of the key constituencies.

The real loser, of course, is Sheila Terry - not that she was likely to win a seat but more because of the apparent public vote of no confidence from her party leaders. Drapier got to know Sheila Terry during the by-election and in his view she was a good candidate. She deserved better and it may be that, like Bernie Malone, her treatment will rebound to her electoral favour - if she makes the ticket.

The manner of Tom Morrissey's arrival sends out a message to PD constituency organisations. The arrival as candidates of Katherine Bulbulia, in Waterford, and Mairead Foley, in Dublin North East - both excellent candidates - and now Morrissey in Dublin West, coupled with the attempts to detach some Fine Gael and Fianna Fail names, sends out a message that "no locals need apply". HE PDs are not alone in facing this problem. All parties have had big rows over "parachutists", Orla Guerin being the most publicised, and it underlines the point that the view from headquarters can be very different from the world as seen at grassroots. The Morrissey gamble may work but Drapier doubts it.

One way or another, it's back on Tuesday for what will be the last session of the 27th Dail. It won't be the time for memories of some of the most dramatic parliamentary events in our history - the 27th Dail was the Dail of the Beef Tribunal Report, of Albert and Harry Whelehan, of Brendan Smith, of John Bruton rescued from certain political death, of Michael Lowry, Ben Dunne and Pat Tuffy, of hepatitis C, of the resurfacing of old phone tap scandals and, of course, the Dail of a yuppie phrase Drapier hates - The Celtic Tiger.

Nor will it be a time for memories of a Dail which has seen us lose some of our most respected and beloved colleagues Neil Blaney and Brian Lenihan, two great political oaks; Gerry O'Sullivan and Johniny Fox and in the Seanad, the finest of people; and Sean Fallon, Liam Naughten and the incomparable Gordon Wilson.

It's too soon and too jittery a time for memories. All our energies will be focused on the future - the very immediate future. Leinster House will not be at its most agreeable or most pleasant these coming weeks but then politics, like life, has its own rhythms and seasons. The tail-end of a dying Dail has its own time-honoured tensions and a Dail which has given so much drama these past five years may have a few dying kicks, a few unexpected turns left in it yet. Nothing would now surprise Drapier.