Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?

SO there I was, a soccer man at a rugby match in GAA headquarters and, at the end of a memorable evening, the thoughts of one famous Ulster man were uppermost in my mind.

Van Morrison put it best: wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time? But, especially, we are keen to add, when Wales come a-calling for the first soccer game at Croke Park on March 24.

Between now and then, we will doubtless be inundated with musings about the last great taboo. We’ve had the first rugby match, we’ve had England, we’ve even had ‘God Save The Queen’, and somehow Ireland, the team and the very nation itself, not only survived but thrived. Winning, you might even say, by a cricket score.