Let the wishful thinking begin

NOTHING shortens a grim, cold and dark winter like the prospect of great, sunny days ahead.

If you can accept that, then last night’s Euro 2012 draw in Kiev means the daffodils will be in full bloom the week after next. Maybe not, but being involved in a major football championship for the first time in a decade, with matches to come against Spain, Croatia and Italy, allows everyone to indulge in some wishful thinking unthreatened by any immediate intervention of reality.

So great is the happiness already provoked by Giovanni Trapattoni’s team that if you were to ask an Irish soccer fan to choose between the guaranteed survival of the euro and an immediate economic recovery or a successful campaign next summer, it would be a very close run thing.