First of 140,000,000 wishes

It has always been my dream to captain my home county to an All Ireland final. The pragmatic reality is that as I approach the half century mark, and given I'm from Longford, it's not a likely proposition.

However there is a caveat. The Euromillions hits €140M this evening. I have costed “employing” the top 30 footballers in the country under the guidance of Joe Kiernan. Give them “jobs” on the farm, transfer to the local club and then transition to the inter-county set up.

Sure there would be a problem of making a mockery of the ethos of the organisation and some lads would be outraged by the sheer cynicism of the endeavour, but the lure of a couple of million euros for ten months work would be attractive enough to put together an undefeatable team.

As for the county board, well let's just say that the problems with the stand in Pearse Park would go away very quickly.

By my reckoning by the time Sam was sitting on my mantelpiece I would still have enough change out of the €140M to only have to do a three day week in the Celt.

Sure there are nobler things I could do, things that would be less frivolous, have a greater and more positive social impact, but none of them would replicate the feeling I get when I am brought on 10 seconds before the final whistle to be part of the campaign that was otherwise “plagued by injury”.

“Tá athas orm...” I've even got the start of my speech mapped out.

That's how I'm going to spend the majority of my winnings. Then I'll probably squander the rest. How about you?