This blog comes to you just a few hours after MNS went to air, still Monday Night Soccer, just about, although the majority of the show was transmitted on Tuesday morning.
I'm in the air, aboard a Lufthansa flight bound for Norway where I will catch up with Trapattoni and the Republic of Ireland squad in Oslo.
It meant a four thirty start after a very small sleep but hey, who's complaining? The squad, a few hardy supporters and assembled hacks left Dublin after training on Monday for the last friendly before the real business of qualification for the World Cup begins but with Con Murphy still in Beijing and staff scarce on the ground my MNS presenting duties continue for another couple of weeks and so I stayed behind for what was an entertaining and thought provoking show.
Action from the FAI Ford Cup was to form a central part of MNS this week but the continuing, unfolding events at Cork City where the current cup holders stand on the verge of extinction meant that once again the perilous state of the game here needed to be examined in detail.
Earlier in the week we revealed that the former owner, Brian Lennox had tendered his resignation and that the club was facing mounting debts.
Players had been paid late and early, creditors were queuing up and Arkaga, the venture capital company that had bought the club from Lennox , made it clear that there was to be no further investment in the best supported club in the country. One of the options being considered was an application to the courts for examinership.
The club themselves issued a statement saying they were actively seeking new investors and the FAI said they had a letter where the parent company guaranteed all liabilities up to the end of January 2009.
Arkaga were said to be unhappy with the inevitable negative publicity but clearly questions were going to be raised about how the club was run and why Arkaga got involved in the League of Ireland in the first place.
We invited the new Chief Executive of Cork City, Pat Kenny, onto the show to give us the very latest but on Monday he and the other board members were in emergency session all day Monday and they declined to put forward another spokesperson.
That's part of the problem for the suffering City fans. Who owns their club and what is their motivation? Arkaga, as far as the public is concerned is a faceless entity and that makes the fan in the street nervous.
Fran Gavin, the Director of the League, made his debut on the MNS couch and outlined the FAI view regarding club licensing and the penalties for breaches. He believes the trouble some clubs are in, the likes of Sligo Rover, Galway, Cobh Ramblers, etc is inevitable as the league comes to terms with the reality of a new professionalism. Iceberg, what iceberg?
When the best supported club in the country, a club that has the second city to itself for the most popular game on the planet runs into such serious financial difficulties it has surely to set the alarm bells ringing.
The other voices on the MNS couch were all Cork voices, including my own, and any notion that Pat Morley or Dave Barry, legends in the green and white and red, would have agendas or want anything other than good things for their club and their City is patently ridiculous.
There is a suggestion that Arkaga, enthusiastic supporters of the proposed All Ireland League to the extent that they hosted a meeting of interested parties in their Dublin offices in the IFSC were disillusioned with the lack of progress on this front and decided to cut and run.
Going live to Noel Spillane, a respected writer on soccer in Cork for over twenty years, we learnt that one potential investor had pulled out but that Cork could yet find a lifeline from their only tangible assets - the players.
Reading boss Steve Coppell was reported to have made a bid for City striker Dave Mooney, the leading goalscorer in the league last season and so far in this campaign as well. Although the Evening Echo reported the bid to be around €254,000 it’s expected the price will increase significantly.
Crucially a former Cork player and current Republic of Ireland international Reading striker Kevin Doyle may be on the move from the Madjeski and Mooney could well become his replacement at Reading. If Doyle goes, and Aston Villa and Sunderland are both interested the price tag would be somewhere between £5million to £8million.
Cork City would be due a significant portion of that fee, believed to be 10% and that money would go a long way towards wiping out the clubs debt.
Whatever about the off field problems, City did the business on the field as they saw off Shamrock Rovers at Tolka Park. Chants of 'Where's your wages gone?' clearly helped to focus and motivate Alan Mathews charges and so the cup holders are into the last eight.
Next week's draw should be interesting although Bohemians must surely now be favourites for the cup as well as the league following their victory over Drogheda. An exciting clash that was worth the wait for those fans who had to endure a wait of almost an hour for an electrical fault to be rectified.
Bray Wanderers are making steady progress and their replay victory over Dundalk ensures their season remains alive.
For Galway the cup has been a welcome distraction from the travails at the wrong end of the Premier league table and St Pat's after their win at Ferrycarrig Park over Wexford Youths have been given the Pat Morley seal of approval to go on and win the trophy for the first time since 1961. I'm sure Johnny McDonnell was only too delighted to get the Morley thumbs up.
Brian Walsh of Carrick United hit a belter in their game against Sporting Fingal and although Carrick are out they can be sure that Walshies' strike is a Goal of the Month contender but hats off to Wayside Celtic who came through against Monaghan, not quite giant killing perhaps but an outstanding achievement for the Leinster Senior League side nonetheless.
Which brings me to Kildare County and Derry City. Station Road was rained off at the weekend and the replay was scheduled for Tuesday but Kildare's ground was unavailable so the club meekly agreed to a switch to the Brandywell.
Home advantage and the glory of the cup? A little bird told me that the clubhouse was not available because Tuesday was a bingo night. That's a joke surely. Isn't it?
From the ridiculous to the sublime Oslo is clean and sunny, reminding you of what Irish summer used to be like. Can Trap' and his boys bring us back to those days when Summer was a season, not a day and Ireland qualified for World Cups. Time will tell.
Tony O'Donoghue is Group Football Correspondent for RTÉ.
