Punching above our weight: Halcyon days indeed — enjoy them!

IF sport can be a barometer of national well-being then these are indeed golden, halcyon days. 

How we participate in sport, how we celebrate it and support it, how we embed it in its myriad expressions in our culture says a lot more about a society than its GDP, its divorce rate or its industrial productivity levels — even though some of those occasionally important measurements might be nudged in one direction or another by the fallout from Wednesday night’s heroics in Lille where Ireland — population 4.6 million — team beat Italy — population 60m — to set up a Euro 2016 last 16 game against France — population 66m — in Lyon in a little over 48 hours.

Those who cling to the you’ll-never-beat-the-Irish rallying call, despite some evidence to the contrary, may not have been surprised at that wonderful, warming achievement, and the opportunity it brings to avenge Thierry Henry’s cruel handiwork, but the status quo of European soccer hardly anticipated it. For the next two days — at least — anything will seem possible proving again that the opportunity to hope against all the odds is one of the great gifts of sport.