Listen very carefully, I will say this only once…

So we’re not going to the World Cup again. And New Zealand are.

Croke Park was absolutely rocking again on Saturday night. I brought Gavin‘s Flip camera with me and hoped to get some videos and interviews in the mixed zone in an attempt to go all multi-platform but due to lack of time, and poor content (Bacary Sagna speaking in French in a press scrum, for example) they’re not really worth posting.

Unlike, of course, the above picture taken, badly, on my phone. It was good to mess around with the technology though and I’m certainly going to purchase one soon.

As I was only doing player quotes and stuff after the full-time whistle I wasn’t under any real pressure during the match itself so I tweeted from the press area quite a bit – something I’d never done before. And the reaction was pretty impressive. There was about 200 hits, I think, on pictures, like the one above and below, that I posted.

I went into town after I clocked off and they mood around the place was still, I must say, delusionally optimistic, with lads I got chatting to on the way in still hopeful. I think, however, the reality is starting to bite this morning.

I’m ashamed to say I’m pleased I didn’t book a trip to Paris. At the moment though, the Eurostar is packed with Irish guys on their way to the French capital. And the airports will be creaking with seasoned campaigners in moth-balled jerseys. For their sake at least, I hope we make a game of it at the Stade de France and maybe bring it to extra time. Who knows then? If we got to penalites, you have to fancy Shay Given.

Jesus, I’m lying to myself again.

Finally, I want to know if The Story will be filing a Freedom of Information request to learn how much it cost me, the tax payer, for a tardy Graeme Souness to get a garda escort from Dublin Airport. He could’ve got the 747 or 746 all the way to Quinns and walked to Hill 16 in five minutes.

Souness also claims to be partaking in Movember (or as he put it, some charity thing for the month of August, Bill. August, Graeme?). Those who saw him play however, will not be surprised to learn that Souey is cheating in that he has sprouted a full-on beard. This is contrary to the spirit of the Movember law. I shall be writing to the Minister for Communications and the RTE DG.

We may not be seeing Souness and his co-pannelists on Wednesday night with a deal yet to be struck for the TV rights. The French always blindfolded victims of the guillotine, of course. l