When Pete Mahon talks about doing things properly at St Francis, it's easy to see what he means. The 1990 Cup finalists undoubtedly have one of the more humble homes in the league but everywhere there is evidence of progress being made. The movement may be slow but, invariably Mahon believes, it's in the right direction.

Recently it appeared for a while that the manager had got it all right on the pitch. His team, a blend of experienced players drawn from other National League outfits and young talent spotted at lower levels, followed a draw at Longford with a remarkable 4-3 defeat of Bray. Athlone and Monaghan were beaten by a goal each and the Dubliners were suddenly on the verge of a serious challenge for the promotion playoff.

Three weeks and three defeats later the club have slipped back to third from bottom. The priorities have shifted again, as they seem to for half of the teams in the First Division on a regular basis. Another brief string of wins could propel them back up the table but Mahon's sights are firmly fixed on the longer term.

On paper just about any club with money to spend should make a fairly good stab at winning promotion. If they spend the money and don't make it then bankruptcy is the usual result while, as Drogheda proved this year, even managing to finish in the top two is no guarantee of a trouble-free existence financially. At St Francis the approach has been a little different.

Mahon makes no bones about the fact that he lost a good few players last summer due to his refusal to pay wages to players incapable of mounting a serious challenge for promotion or bigger wages to those who just might be. His playing staff, he insists now, are on the traditionally unpopular no-pay-per-play deals with whatever money that comes in going instead towards improving the facilities out at John Hyland Park in Baldonnel.

Gates of the size which St Francis attract fund modest enough developments but the club's home, the already fine clubhouse aside, shows the early signs of benefiting from a long-term development plan.

It's all a very long way from the talk that goes on about shifting the league's appeal towards the ABC1s, attracting the corporate sector and emulating the sort of entertainment sector branding that has been so central to the transformation of the English game. And yet it would be sad to think that such patient and dedicated work towards a club's improvement has no part in the National League's future plans.

However, that would appear to be the case for there is growing confidence among those involved with the bigger clubs that agreement will be reached towards the end of this season on a reduction in the number of clubs competing at national level.

The plan, it seems, will involve the performance of clubs over a couple of years being taken into account and those with the highest aggregate league placings filling whatever number of places are finally decided upon. It is, it would appear, going to result in a crazy couple of years as participants in a league, which at the best of times averages three or four brushes with the receivers a season, scramble to ensure their continued involvement.

Even without those sort of considerations, Mahon admits that he does not know how long he and his club can continue to pursue their preferred course forward. The pressure to opt for the quick fix is constantly there but, for the moment at least, he and his management team continue to edge the club in a direction which all should admire but few will choose to follow.