It’s my bloggy birthday today, so it is – three full years have now passed since that fateful day on which I penned this initial entry, thus launching what has since become a rather meandering and, at times, slightly deranged public discourse about the county’s onward footballing journey down Road to God Knows Where.  So many words, so few big day wins: could there be, like, any correlation between the two?

Anyway, enough of that: it’s Monday, I’ve work to do but before I head in that direction, there’s time to reference a few match reports from yesterday’s FBD win over the Rossies.  Unlike last week, the locals haven’t any reports out the door yet but, by the looks of it, the nationals did make it to Ballinlough yesterday – here’s Cliona Foley’s report in the Indo and here’s one without a byline in the Times.  Both of them say that Trevor got one of our points yesterday and that Mark Ronaldson got 1-6 so I think that’s what’ll be going in the official results archive ledger.  Like myself, TIALTNGO had Mark down for 1-7 and he was also glad to see Seamus O’Shea and Enda Varley get a run yesterday.  He reckons that the old U21 O’Shea/Parsons midfield axis might be back in business against Galway next weekend, which would certainly be an interesting development.

With the NFL set for the big throw-in this coming weekend, I got a mail from the Face the Ball lads (which I assume a load of the rest of you did as well) saying that one should really organise another mini-league. What do you reckon?  Last year’s ones we did were a bit of gas, I thought, although in my case most of my predictions turned out to be a load of hot air.  I’ll rummage round the Face the Ball site in the next day or two and let you know how to sign up for dish ear’s NFL mini-league, if that’s your thing.

Finally, I’d like to extend heartiest congratulations to my long-standing tecchie troubleshooter, TJ, who became a father for the second time at 3.24 pm yesterday.  This time it’s a boy and so obviously the first thing that needs to get sorted is sporting allegiances.  TJ’s main interest in this area resides with the oval ball but, clearly, the little lad hasn’t yet decided which code to follow.  If my own small buachaill is anything to go by, it’ll simply be the lot of them.  Welcome to the world, little TJ, and don’t forget that where it comes to sport, it’s all a load of balls.