The DUP’s image has take a battering over recent years, much of it their was their own doing and some of it not – but their rivals shouldn’t get carried away just yet about a major shift in unionism.

That is not to say that the polling that puts the Ulster Unionist Party ahead of Gavin Robinson’s party, and the TUV just behind it, is wrong.

That could easily be a reflection of an electorate sick of the DUP after two decades at the top – and now seeing credible alternatives.

But it is to say that the DUP has some of the Assembly’s most impressive performers – and they will be a huge asset going into May’s election.

While there were none of the direct attacks on fellow unionists that we’ve seen in recent years, there were plenty of digs from Gavin Robinson in his conference speech on Saturday.

The “one man band” comment was clearly aimed at Jim Allister. But that doesn’t land how it once did, with the TUV boss on the green benches at Westminster and Timothy Gaston at Stormont.

And Mr Gaston has not been a mere bum on a seat, he has been one of the most effective MLAs in the Assembly – and shaken some of his unionist colleagues out of a near coma. His mere voice tips some Alliance MLAs into ill-advised outbursts.

Mr Robinson’s “one man media team” dig, presumably at Jon Burrows, is also not entirely fair. But there is enough of a ring of truth in it to wind his UUP rivals up.

Like Mr Gaston, Jon Burrows wasn’t even in the Assembly when it sat over two years ago and installed Michelle O’Neill as Northern Ireland’s first nationalist First Minister.

And like Mr Gaston, he has really shaken things up at Stormont. There have been occasions when he was clearly leading the unionist benches in debates.

He has been forensic in the day job, and good at selling himself on media old and new. What he is lacking, right now, is other media performers.

Steve Aiken can fulfil that role, but you won’t hear very many other UUP reps on the Nolan Show on a tricky issue.

Before Burrows, the UUP had been so comfortable playing second fiddle that one senior figure remarked to me once, incredulously, “this man wants to be first minister!”. What next.

Short of a fundamental realignment in unionism, no unionist is going to be first minister any time soon. The battle is really over who comes out on top in a three-way intra-unionist battle.

But before anyone writes the DUP off because of the polls, they just need to look at the breadth and depth of the MLAs they have.

In some debates, Sinn Fein barely feature. When they do speak, some of them are so timid they won’t take an intervention from a rival. The DUP has those too.

But it also has a host of assured performers, some of whom they wheeled out on Saturday. When you have arguably the Assembly’s most competent and effective MLA group, electoral collapse seems pretty unlikely.

Voters won’t blame any of these people for the vile acts of Jeffrey Donaldson. But the party broke the electorate’s trust when it lied to its face about the Irish Sea border, and that can’t all be blamed on the jailed paedophile.

The DUP’s pitch is that it is still the only party strong enough to lead unionism – its rivals now have a big job to convince the electorate that’s not true.