This is me in my – yeah, no – absolute happy place. Castlerock College jersey with the collar popped. Rugby Tactics Book under my orm. The match against Blackrock College is just four days away and I have a plan to beat them. 

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So it’s, like, 11 o’clock on Sunday morning and I’m hord at work – albeit still in bed – making notes in my famous Rugby Tactics Book. Sorcha walks into the room and goes, “Get dressed, Ross. We’re going out for lunch.”

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“Kicker!” the old man has the actual nerve to go. “To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?”

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Sorcha says this is the worst thing I’ve ever done. And it’s far from it. I could give her a list of 50 things, except I doubt if it would help my cause.

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There’s no sugar-coating this one. We’ve been taken to the literally cleaners today. Yeah, no, beaten 45-10 by – and there’s easy way of saying this – Wesley College, the same Wesley College who haven’t won a Leinster Schools Senior Cup since the world was in pretty much black and white.

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I’m like, “A what?” And Honor goes, “A double date. It’s cute.” I’m there, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Claire from Bray of all places–”

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Joy Felton – yeah, no, one of our neighbours – is standing at the front gates as I swing the cor into the driveway and she nearly ends up with the BMW logo imprinted backwards across her, I want to say, midriff?

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A Prius pulls up at the next pump, just as I’m imagining what topics my pep talk would touch on, and suddenly I hear the driver say my name. She’s like, “Ross!”

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So – yeah, no – I’m in the staffroom and I’m chatting to one or two teachers about the Leinster match against La Rochelle: Miss Casey, who teaches something-or-other, and Miss Nealon, who teaches, I don’t know, something else.

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I’m packing away the last of the Christmas bits and – yeah, no – I’m throwing out the Advent calendar that someone sent me obviously as a joke. It’s a Blackrock College Advent calendar – which is the same as a regular Advent calendar, except that your daddy opens all of the doors for you!

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