Ireland qualify; fantastic stuff.  CB brings us to to our first international comp for a good while and a World Cup at that!  I spose I should really keep my rep up and focus on the negatives, but do you really think that I would honestly diss-qualification??  I for one never doubted him...

But I have to admit to giving him a little bit of stick throughout that long and arduous campaign.  Fair play to him for rising to it and seeing it for what it was meant to be: constructive criticism, albeit verging on acerbic candour.  I told it how I saw it and I still stand by my convictions.  The lucky win against Greece at the outset, when our weakened dirt-tracker side took the pitch, some dodgy selections along the way, messing with the captaincy, but we got away with it.  Luck was with us.  As my old coach used to say, "A mistake is only a mistake, if you don't do anything about it."  I like to think that CB has grown in to this role; he's had to take an awful lot of shit - not only from myself, I hasten to add - but he has taken it on board and he has got the result that we coveted so much.  And I must say the incorporation of Alan Greene as number one keeper, while I initially had my doubts, has been borne out as genius.

I don't think it matters too much (maybe it's just the wine talking) that we played an Austrian team peopled with the flotsam and jetsam of the NT sale and only managed a 1-0 victory.  A win in this case is most definitely a win.  Who knows in this game, if they'd played their full strength side we probably would've won 5-0. <pours himself another glass..>

We've a good team in fairness and a number of talented young players really seem to be coming in to their own.  As well as Greene I'm talking Ó Raighne, young Kenny, Scott, O'Neill, O'Brien and glynn (whose best football is still to come, I reckon).  We have matured as a side.  You could say that CB took the reins at a most opportune time, but that would be more than a little uncharitable - he got us to a World Cup!  And if he can maintain his speaking terms relationship with Lady Luck, I reckon we could even win it.  Get us out of the groups, lad and I will be (relatively) happy.

So I'm really pleased with the way things have turned out and I know that this does not appear too Gaffer-esque, but hell, I'm an old softie really, once you get to know me.  And in terms of this curious fascination with the details of my identity, CB here's a clue