You know what I hate? Stupid, ill-informed, disrespectful comments about any team when it’s unfounded, especially a team who was one of five to go through their qualifying group unbeaten. Rant over.

…because their situation is truly rubbish.

A dead rubber it might be, but an entirely worthwhile one, given the circumstances.

…it’s still hurting quite a lot today.

Ah, comments in the heat of the moment. Lovely stuff.

…I would apologise for not putting anything up recently, but any complaints should be directed towards the University of Sussex, Mark Mazower and Eric Hobsbawn. Not my fault, guv….

…because anyone who truly expected to finish ahead of Italy was at best an optimist, at worst a lunatic.

Ouch

…yeah, the name itself inspires some fear, irritation and many more feelings amongst us lot. It’s one of those countries up there with Israel, Liechtenstein and Macedonia, famed by the Irish for being the opposition on some of the darker recent nights in our qualifying history. Truth be told, our recent record against the Cypriots [...]

The term ‘by the skin of their teeth’ comes to mind before anything else.
Tonight’s match against Georgia was supposed to be a chance for the Irish national team to show that they’re real candidates for automatic qualification to South Africa 2010, as well as giving a wee pick me up to the people of our [...]