Election results - FF have lost the right to dictate

SO, the medicine has been administered and now all we can do is wait, watch and hope, wondering if thepatient will respond or succumb to the malaise.

It would be nice to retain a sense of detachment, as if we were watching a first-round hurling championship match made irrelevant by the lifeboat RNLB Backdoor moored outside the stadium, but the patient’s wellbeing is central to all of our prospects and ambitions.

Stretching the medical analogy, almost as far as our credibility was stretched over recent years, hopefully we can begin to build a sense of optimism now that the fever has broken and the patient is in a position to respond. And what a response it must be.