Even my silver linings have huge cloudy puffballs

After the conspicuous lack of success on Day One I’m twitchy. I need a winner, just to get something on the board, and I need it quickly. Fortunately I have another of those money-back bets on the opener, up to a maximum of 20 quid. All the times I’ve shouted at players to take their point on the basis that, with patience, the goals will come?

Conveniently forgotten in my hour of crisis. I press the nuclear button for the Ballymore and stick the €20 on the 7/2 favourite Battleoverdoyen. Even to my unexpert eye it becomes clear a long way from home that Battleoverdoyen (“built like a tank,” according to Mick Fitzgerald on the telly) is running in snatches and that Jack Kennedy is scrubbing him along. Very soon he is tailed off and pulled up.