Spring to follow our winter of discontent

It was hard to keep sight of the green shoots of a footballing spring at the Aviva last Tuesday as thick snow began to swirl into the press box, threatening to short-circuit the old laptoperooney. And harder still, nigh on impossible in fact, when they were unceremoniously trampled underfoot at the death.

That’s how bad it felt in the immediate aftermath of the 2-2 draw with Austria, David Alaba’s stomach punch effecting the double-whammy of turning three points into one on the night and four into two after the scoreless draw in Sweden just four nights earlier.

How quickly the wheel spins in sport and how fine can be the margins between success and failure. Think back to the dying moments of the game in Stockholm, when David Forde was able to get a strong hand to Rasmus Elm’s shot and ensure the Irish would take home a point that was as well-earned as, in advance of the game, it had been unexpected. Now flash-forward to the dying moments on Tuesday and this time Forde, through absolutely no fault of his own, was unable to get any kind of hand to Alaba’s deflected strike, with the result that the narrative changed in an instant.