It was a quiet enough week for the Irish abroad, apart from Stephen McPhail who scored twice yesterday for Leeds against Chelsea and Kevin Kilbane whose transfer to Sunderland caused ructions at West Bromwich Albion, whose manager Brian Little reckoned the £2.6 million fee they received for the player was about £1 million short of Kilbane's true worth.
That remains to be seen but it didn't take the winger long to prove Little might have had a point - four minutes after coming on as a substitute for Sunderland on Saturday he skipped past the Southampton right-back, whipped in a perfect cross for Niall Quinn who nodded the ball into the path of Kevin Phillips, who made it 2-0. Easy, really. Who said he'd need time to adjust to Premiership football?
Our award, though, goes to Shelbourne old-boy David Byrne who joined Dundee United during the summer. Now, we're not claiming he did anything spectacular on Saturday - after all he was only on the pitch for a few minutes after coming on as an 88th minute substitute and his team DID lose 4-1 to Celtic - but still, making your debut in front of 59,120 frenzied fanatical football fans at Celtic Park sounds like Boy's Own stuff to us. Congratulations Davy Byrne, keep it up.
