It was blitzkrieg time in Togher. Simon Coveney had worked the houses in this part of Cork twice before but the Fine Gael candidate was leaving nothing to chance.
Michael Noonan, with the Fine Gael leader's brother Richard Bruton, Bernard Allen and Liam Burke, assembled the troops outside the Ardmanning bar to give them their starting orders.
"One canvasser to a house - once the people come out, hold them as long as you can so as to allow Simon to get there and have a few words with the householders," Mr Noonan told the party loyalists, many of whom had come from Limerick to lend their support.
There is an art to canvassing - while the candidate is at one front door, the trick is to have another opening so that he can move swif tly from one house to another. This requires the ability to sprint, shaking hands on the hoof, listening to people but always while moving on.
In the Coveney camp there is still a quiet confidence about Friday's by-election but nothing is being taken for granted: "We've only a few days to go," he said. "What we cannot afford is for people to get complacent. The final run-in is on and we cannot allow complacency."
Liam Burke confided that from a Fine Gael colleague - not from Cork - he had received £1,000 to put on the candidate at the bookmakers. As he is odds-on favourite to win the seat, the punter will not receive much more than £500 if he does. "Anyway, I got it on and we'll know next Friday," he said.
Simon Coveney takes easily to the campaign trail - all the Coveneys do, having been thrown in at the deep end during their late father's campaigns in Cork over the years. Simon's brothers Rory (23), twins Andrew and Tony (21) and sister, Rebecca (19) are old hands.
They cannot be with him on this campaign because they are on a round-the-world yacht trip to raise money for the Chernobyl Children's Project in Cork. They are in Singapore and will not be back in the city until May.
But even from the other side of the world the Coveney clan's presence in Cork is being felt.
"I say a decade of the rosary for your mother, your brothers and your sister every day, to ensure they will be OK," one man said at the doorstep. There was no doubt where that vote was going. Another added: "Your dad always got my vote - he was a gentleman".
A casual passer-by said: "The weather is good anyway, stick it out, boy, you don't have to ask me, you know you have my vote. You're a fine young man."
Michael Noonan, the most senior political figure in the group, stayed close to the candidate. An elderly woman passed by as Coveney stopped to shake her hand and asked for a No 1. "I'm Michael Noonan - I'm down from Limerick to give Simon a hand," he told her. "Oh God," she enthused, "I only ever saw you on the TV - it's an honour to meet you in person. Of course I'll vote for him".
A woman who was waiting three years for Cork Corporation to fix her window in a back kitchen wanted to know what was happening. In fairness to Simon Coveney, she said, he was the only politician who had written to her. When the election was over, he promised he would do "even better than that".
The three main candidates in the by-election, Mr Coveney, Sinead Behan (Fianna Fail) and Toddy O'Sullivan (Labour) are nearing the end of what has been an uneventful campaign, for the most part, but a gruelling one nonetheless.
The polls show that Mr Coveney and Ms Behan are neck and neck and that Mr O'Sullivan's transfers will be vital to the final outcome. As far as the two frontrunners are concerned, it's still all to play for.
Sometimes it is foolish to put one's head too far above the parapet, but at the beginning of this campaign I thought Simon Coveney would win the seat left vacant by his father and I won't change now.