I think Tony McDonnell was quietly satisfied when he sat down after participating in the draw for the quarter finals of the eircom League of Ireland Cup on Monday night.
He drew out his beloved UCD, and that meant a home game for them, and when Dave Barry drew Wexford Youths out to face the Students, it was even better news for Tony and his former team-mates.
Given that Derry, Bohs, Cork and Drogheda were the other four balls in the drum at that time, the draw can be considered a good result for UCD, which is more than can be said for their game away to Derry on Friday night.
Stephen Kenny's team gave the Students 'one hell of a beating', if I may borrow that famous Norwegian commentator's famous phrase. Actually, despite the fact that UCD are in the drop zone at the moment, very few teams have given them a whacking this season. It's interesting when compared with Bray Wanderers who sit mid table-ish, despite suffering three 3-0 reverses this campaign.
Speaking of Derry, I like so many of the Candystripe faithful, really wish we could film back towards the main stand at the Brandywell, so viewers who've never been to Derry would see the packed stand, and the massed ranks of the Derry supporters.
It's a similar problem in Galway, and Sligo, amongst others, where we have to film out from the main stands, towards the lesser populated sections of the ground. The reason is simple. It is far too expensive to build temporary camera platforms on the other sides of the grounds.
For example at the Brandywell, to get the right angle for the cameras in relation to the pitch, the temporary camera platform needs to be built on the roadside outside the ground. This may be practical for a live game, but for a highlights show, it's an impossibility.
I know moves are afoot to redevelop the Brandywell, and the sooner the better, because the Derry crowd are amongst the most passionate and colourful in the league. It is just a pity that we rarely get to see them.
The three panellists on the programme this week , Tony McDonnell, Dave Barry, and Paul Lennon, were all in agreement that Barry Murphy's save from Tony Grant was as good as you'll see anywhere. This follows last week's brilliant save in Ballybofey by the Shamrock Rovers 'keeper.
We have a Goal of the Month competition already, but if we had a Save of the Month competition, it would seem that Barry Murphy would have several contenders each month. Maybe that says something about the Shamrock Rovers defence, but certainly, Murphy's shot stopping prowess is worth several points to the Hoops over the course of the season.
We got a great reaction to Faz Kudozovic's 60, with Jaqui Hurley this week. Fahrudin, as his mother probably still calls him, was asked some tricky ones, like: 'What's your favourite WB Yeats poem?', 'Who is the Taoiseach?' and 'Tubbercurry or curry chips?'
If you didn't see it, it is available on the MNS website. I won't give the answers away here, but it gave all the panellists in studio a good laugh.
To those who sniff at the Sixty section I'd simply say that it's one minute of nonsense, that puts a personality on the faces of the players who perform on the pitch, and as we've seen from recent weeks, the players have great personalities which we'll try to develop further over the coming weeks, and seasons in fact. If it gives us all a laugh going into an ad break, there's no harm done.
While on the subject of Sligo, or a Sligo player at least, congratulations are in order to match referee Ritchie Winter, who earned glowing praise from our co-commentator Damien Richardson during last Friday night's Friday Sportsnight programme.
I don't think I've ever heard Damien so complimentary about any match official over the last 20 years or so! Actually across all the games in last weekend's Premier Division series, there were very few questionable decisions.
The officials seem to have raised their game of late. Long may that continue. Although it does give us less to talk about on a Monday evening!!
A number of people have asked me what started my laughing fit on last week's Friday Sportsnight programme. The answer is not much. If you haven't heard it, I'll try to get it uploaded onto the MNS website in the next day or so. I had made a couple of little mistakes last Friday.
Cueing our reporter at the Brandywell when I should have gone to Dalymount first, or something like that. Nothing major, but off air, I said to the producer John, and Frank on the sound desk (who did a great job covering up my mistakes by being on the ball enough to put up the Dalymount fader instead of Brandywell at a second's notice) - 'I'll concentrate now, no more mistakes tonight'...
Then, ten seconds later, I slurred my way through a link to Siobhan Madigan at Tolka Park, and as I did I noticed John and Frank just roll their eyes to heaven in a resigned fashion. It tickled my funny bone, and once I started I couldn't stop.
I reiterate I was stone cold sober even though it sounded for a moment as if I'd had 47 pints before the show started. Once you start into one of those laughing fits it's very hard to stop. It's only the second time it's ever happened me on radio.
The first was about 17 years ago. I spoke to Eoin Hand afterwards, who had been listening in his car, and he said it made him laugh to hear me laugh, - and if that's the affect it had that's a good thing.
After this week's MNS we received a couple of e-mails to mns@rte.ie giving out about the fact that we showed another OG. in the Raiders section this week. In fairness it was requested by a viewer, but I think we're nearly out of spectacular OGs at this stage anyway.
Let there be no complaints if we manage to source the Mick O'Brien breaking the crossbar clip, as it's probably the most requested moment of all from the archives. We are actively trying to track it down.
