Mayo managerial position: Seán Moran on why, whatever the merits of the Mayo manager's case for being given another year in the job, it's now a post few would actually covet.

Two managerial posts demonstrate the varying demands of intercounty football. Last Monday to the accompaniment of a fanfare in a Dublin city centre hotel the much-travelled Mick O'Dwyer was unveiled as the new manager of Wicklow.

For the most successful manager in the history of the game this is at once the most challenging but also the least pressurised of his four county appointments.

Wicklow have slipped down football's pecking order in recent years and are on paper (and grass) the weakest of the counties contesting the Leinster championship.

Any improvement - and there's plenty of room for it - will be regarded as progress. His name will be enough to inspire full turnouts at training and a concerted effort for the next year at least.

On the other side of the country Mayo are currently enmeshed in appointment chaos with many believing Mickey Moran, the experienced Derry coach who together with assistant John Morrison, from Armagh and a senior figure in Ulster football coaching, and local selector Kieran Gallagher, highly regarded manager of Sligo IT's successful Sigerson teams, took the county to this year's All-Ireland final, will follow Morrison in walking away from the job after just one year.

Moran has kept his counsel since the All-Ireland and will be meeting with the county chair at the beginning of next week after which his intentions will be known.

Morrison's decision to step down was unexpected because he and Moran have worked as a team in their last three management positions.

The main reason for the disenchantment that has covered Mayo like a miasma is the scale of the defeat to Kerry four weeks ago. It was the county's fifth successive defeat in an All-Ireland senior final - a sequence stretching back to 1989. Should Moran depart, the pressure on any successor will be obvious: success will be counted solely in All-Ireland titles.

Last Monday's county board meeting heard criticism of the management's approach to the All-Ireland, as well as dissatisfaction that Moran was felt to be dragging his feet on the question of re-committing to the Mayo job. Less publicity attached to the expressions of support for the management, who in the eyes of many had achieved a great deal in the course of one year.

As was remarked, had the Mayo public been presented with an agenda that included reaching a League semi-final, regaining from Galway the Connacht title, recording a first championship victory over Dublin in one of the most enthusiastically received matches of the year and an All-Ireland appearance, there would have been no accusations of lack of ambition.

So what went wrong? Despite reports that the players had expressed dissatisfaction with the management's preparation for the final, none of the football sources contacted in Mayo last week were aware of any such discontent and neither had it been evident before the All-Ireland.

But what was known was that relations between the county board and the Moran/Morrison management had been strained for most of the year.

Despite Morrison's protestations on Thursday night, on Mayo's Midwest Radio, that the management had had a good relationship with the county board and had never been denied anything material for the preparation of the team, the strong sense in the county was one of underlying friction.

There had been clashes over fixtures and availability of players with one side feeling that the county team's preparations were being compromised and the other of the view that the proposed burden on clubs was arbitrary and unsustainable.

It was unusual that a bulletin on the increased cost of running the county team was released earlier this year rather than at the end of the season and at one stage over the summer, county secretary Seán Feeney, questioning the cost of and interest in a trip to Dublin, initially angled for the Laois-Mayo All-Ireland quarter-final to be played in Hyde Park, Roscommon rather than Croke Park despite the team management's strong preference for the headquarters venue.

The impressive wins over Laois (in Mick O'Dwyer's last match in charge) after a replay and Dublin relegated the reservations, as the county got geared up for another All-Ireland final appearance.

What happened on the day was Mayo were completely unable to cope with Kerry's well flagged game plan. In 2004 under John Maughan, Kerry had almost ambushed Mayo with a long-ball strategy into the full forwards.

This time around the deployment of the 6ft 5in Kieran Donaghy as a ball-winning full forward had been an obvious threat from the final qualifier round onwards. Yet Mayo had no answer.

Again Morrison emphasised there had been plans to counter Donaghy both individually and by trying to affect the quality of ball the forward would receive.

Surprise at the current impasse and Morrison's own resignation partly stem from the defiance of Moran and Morrison the night of the All-Ireland final banquet in Dublin's Citywest Hotel. In rousing orations Moran urged the crowd: ". . . let's finish the bloody job," whereas Morrison concluded his address by quoting the republican mantra: "Tiocfaidh ár lá."

Speaking on the radio on Thursday, Morrison explained his position had only been a one-year appointment and he was, unlike Moran, in full-time employment and could no longer spare the time. Yet at the end of the interview he appeared to leave himself open to the prospect of taking charge of a county team on his own.

"Sometimes number two is an arduous job and I'd like a rattle at number one," he told former Mayo, Leitrim and Galway manager John O'Mahony on Midwest Radio.

When Moran meets county chair James Waldron next week, the overall position is complicated. In the eyes of most people the outgoing manager has done enough to justify getting a further year but from Moran's point of view, what attractions would the position hold? The only way of making progress would be to win the All-Ireland. That's a daunting task for any manager and in the case of Mayo it's a near impossibility. Twice in the past three years the county has over-achieved in reaching the All-Ireland final.

Two years ago the elimination of Armagh by Fermanagh opened the road. This time around it was the fact the Connacht-Leinster side of the draw was the easier.

In both cases Mayo did well to advance to the last day of the season but since the advent of the qualifiers, the final is not alone certain to feature one of the elite teams - in recent years Kerry, Tyrone and Armagh - but the best and most honed of them.

That's a daunting prospect, whether for Mickey Moran or whoever succeeds him.