Colin Sheridan: Having miscalculated Ireland's chances, I had to roll the dice

If the measure of a moment’s magnificence is how long after it makes you smile, then last Sunday in Budapest was among the best we’ve ever had.

Ireland’s Troy Parrott and Séamus Coleman celebrate after the match

A metric by which one could measure the profundity of a particular occasion could simply be this: the length of time between the event and the moment you finally start to feel self-conscious - even embarrassed - about your in-the-moment reaction to it. Troy Parrott’s heroics in Budapest are over a week old, but for many of us, the joy derived from the simple act of hugging strangers has yet to recede. A lot can happen in a week. There’s been plenty of time for perspective: real life, work, bills, births, deaths, marriages. So for that feeling to be sustained speaks volumes about the purity of it.

Everyone has a story. An early-afternoon kick-off caught even the most diligent off guard. There was talk of unprepared dads caught rotten in the frozen-food aisle of Dunnes Stores. The realisation that the game had already started - that we were already a goal down - left many a shopping trolley abandoned mid-shop. You could practically hear the frozen chicken goujons thawing, just another casualty of a once-in-a-decade sporting miracle.