Tommy Martin: Everyone is older and wiser the morning after beautiful night

In that moment the players were daft young lasses embarking on a celebratory bender, by the morning they were national figures burdened by responsibility.

CAPTURING THE NEXT GENERATION: Katie McCabe takes a photograph of Áine O’Gorman’s 11-week-old son James at the Hilton Hotel in Northern Cross, Dublin, yesterday. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

YOU could see in Tony O’Donoghue, veteran of the journalistic trenches that he is, a flicker of uncertainty as Vera Pauw offered him a signed jersey from the Irish women’s team upon the moment of their great triumph.

Journalists are not supposed to accept gifts from the people they are reporting on but just then the strict application of vocational ethics would have seemed a little churlish. Instead, the RTÉ reporter accepted the token of gratitude and he and team manager dissolved into a hug.