Muddy strut in plough field makes Nally cock of walk

Farming people don't beat around the bush, and the woman who approached Derek Nally at the Ploughing Championships yesterday was more direct than most. "It's great to see a rooster in among all them clockin' hens," was how she put it.

The lone male candidate has prepared himself for suggestions that, at 60, he is no spring chicken. But this sudden promotion up the pecking order left him temporarily speechless on a day when he was challenging Adi Roche for the title of "the people's candidate". The "pair of safe hands", as a less colourful admirer called him, was a pair of sore hands after two hours of canvassing in the muddy fields of Birr.

The suspicion that the agricultural community doesn't share the visionary aims of some of the other presidential candidates was confirmed by a group of Claremen who, claiming credit for the ex-garda's candidacy ("we started you off") threatened an early visit to Aras an Uachtarain. "Turn off the light in the window and put on a cup of tea," suggested one.

But Nally is sensitive to his position as the only male in the race, and on guard against saying anything that could be construed as misogynistic. Earlier yesterday, he had made a lighthearted riposte to a press query about what single characteristic set him out from the other candidates ("I have to shave in the morning," was the reply). When he related this to his campaign manager, John Dunne, he was thrown by the latter's frown. "Was that a mistake?" he wondered out loud.

There were other issues to worry about. Reading reports in yesterday's newspapers that he might be approached to join a Roche-Banotti pact, the Nally camp decided this would be ruled out. They got an early opportunity to make the point, when Fine Gael's Alan Dukes wandered into the press tent at the same time as the two-man Nally entourage. Dunne suspected this was a spoiling tactic, but Nally greeted the former minister with avuncular ease, before adding, in the same tone: "you can tell your people there'll be no voting pact."

The beneficiary of a successful heart bypass, Nally was determined to visit the "Happy Heart" stand before he left Birr. Unfortunately, the site of the ploughing championships is about the size of Los Angeles and after two hours wandering around the street-grid, there was still no sign of the Happy Heart promotion.

Running out of time and energy, the campaigners took advantage of a Mercedes and a Garda escort to pursue the latest rumour about where the stand was located. The candidate had his misgivings about the attention the escort attracted ("I can't do this royal wave thing - it's embarrassing"). And when a farmer muttered in the window, "you should be walking, like the rest of us", his fears were confirmed.

But it was the only sour note of the day. And, anyway, there's so much mud at the ploughing championships, some of it is bound to stick.