It will determine how you sleep tonight. It may dictate what you eat. It will certainly decide how you engage with people for the rest of the day whether it’s in college, work, or training this evening.

But you’re negligent of the consequences. All that matters is that rush. Lad, that rush.

It’s an opening group game. Those watching it can be counted on fingers but you’ll be following it through yours on social media. The proverbial man has spared his dog the indignity of the cold. But you? It consumes your afternoon. Whatever should be commanding your attention plays second fiddle to your thumb and refreshing.

You might even have it as an accumulator but the other matches will take care of themselves – it’s this one that everything is riding on. See, you’ve come into the possession of some inside information. You’ve been “

You’ve been “reliably” told a unversity star player is only good for 20 minutes at most. “Lump on them,” chirped the WhatsApp message. And you do. With money that you don’t have.

You’re still getting over Christmas but you reason the credit card is there for such eventualities. And those ever so helpful bookmakers have made it ever so convenient for you. Not only is your debit card linked to it – that sure got a hammering in Leopardstown – but your credit card is too. It’s a long time since you noticed a difference between the two. Whichever one is good to use is golden.

For those 60 minutes, you really aren’t you. You’re at the back of the lecture hall where you think you can’t be seen until you’re rumbled and decide to leave. Your work PC blocks social media and personal phone use is frowned upon so you excuse yourself and head to the bathroom for inordinate amounts of time. Sitting on a toilet bowl. Sitting on “your team”. They’re up at half-time. Your intel has been accurate so far. No sign of the other side’s star player. You relax a little because you expect him to make an appearance. And sure

Sitting on a toilet bowl. Sitting on “your team”. They’re up at half-time. Your intel has been accurate so far. No sign of the other side’s star player. You relax a little because you expect him to make an appearance. And sure enough he does but at the start of the second half. Earlier than expected. Much earlier than expected.

Those cursed tweet updates tell you he’s starting to run the show and make in-roads on the deficit. Five points have become two.

You’ve taken yourself to a quiet corner of a college canteen deserted after lunch and pull your hoodie fully over your head so your anguish is inscrutable although your phone quivers slightly in your hands.

Inside the cubicle, nobody can see your torment as you hold your phone is in one hand and your head in another. But this is what makes you feel alive. Your team hang on for a draw but you lose and lose handsomely. You return to your class or desk first feeling vacant, then overcome with dread. The questions start to flood your brain. How can you afford to get home when you’re skint? What do you do for dinner later?

You return to your class or desk first feeling vacant, then overcome with dread. The questions start to flood your brain. How can you afford to get home when you’re skint? What do you do for dinner later?

You’ve read the horror stories. You’ve heard Oisín McConville and how he pulled himself from the abyss. How Niall McNamee hit rock bottom. How Davy Glennon contemplated the worst. How desperate Cathal McCarron was to feed his gambling.

But they aren’t you, you say to yourself. And you’re not them. Not yet anyway. Theirs were addictions; yours is just a habit.

You reconcile with it more. You’ll get over this, you say. The sacrifice made in your humour is something you never consider as meaningful but the sacrifice made in mouth and pocket was worth it for the buzz. Sure, can’t you blag a lift home? Wouldn’t your folks just love to see you tonight? Wouldn’t your mother be only delighted to plate up a home-cooked meal? And your father wouldn’t say no to a request of a few quid, now would he? And isn’t it pay-day at the end of the week? And won’t there be more games too?

Sure, can’t you blag a lift home? Wouldn’t your folks just love to see you tonight? Wouldn’t your mother be only delighted to plate up a home-cooked meal? And your father wouldn’t say no to a request of a few quid, now would he? And isn’t it pay-day at the end of the week? And won’t there be more games too?

Isn’t there Sigerson Cup tomorrow? And is n’t the National League the weekend after next and isn’t Cheltenham only around the corner? All of a sudden you feel you’re in clover once more.

But what you think is linear is a spiral. What you believe you’re climbing, you’re descending. And what you think isn’t you is so very much you.

However, there is help and there is hope. And it starts with a phone-call (01-82721133/0872859552) or an email (info@gamblersanonymous.ie).

Creating a level playing field with Dublin

One interesting point to come out of last Wednesday’s largely forgettable Dáil joint-committee meeting with the heads of Ireland’s three leading sports organisations was GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s claim that Dublin accept their funding must be cut.

Speaking about Dublin’s annual €1m state funding, Duffy, who may expand on his remarks in his annual report released today, said: “(We) are aware and Dublin are aware of the need to rebalance that and that is happening at the moment with Dublin’s approval.

“So there will be a reduction in the funding going to Dublin allowing us to invest in other places.

“It is happening and it will be happening.”

It may be January but the sight of a strong Kildare side going down to a third-string Dublin at home on Sunday underlines the need for the GAA to create more of a level playing field in terms of finances as difficult as that may be.

That Dublin are agreeable to such a decrease is remarkable when they have been diametrically opposed to the idea ever since former GAA president Liam O’Neill raised the subject of equalisation in October 2013.

Combined with this is the Leinster Council’s investment of an additional €1.5m into coaching and development in the capital’s neighbours Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Wicklow over the next three years, which will be overseen by O’Neill.

It’s short-sighted to suggest the GAA have made Dublin the conquistadors of Leinster football but they did play an assisting role.

At least they are beginning to address it.

Munster U25 championship can be a success

The Munster Council’s decision not to accede to Clare’s request to push back tomorrow evening’s clash against Cork can be interpreted as a player welfare issue. So we can expect a GPA statement, right?

The fixtures clash with the Fitzgibbon Cup games should have been foreseen from a long way off but if anyone is to blame, it’s Tipperary. Had they agreed to play in the competition this year, there would have been two groups of three instead of the one five-county group there is now. Therefore, there would be little requirement for midweek games. Munster might have seen fit to change the date of the game for optical reasons, which were possibly amplified by the criticism followed confirmation last week of their plans to introduce an U25 hurling championship this year. Even though the initiative has been backed by the province’s counties, its creation has been viewed dimly in quarters, with one Club Players Association executive member condemning it.

Obviously, curtain-raisers to the senior championship games are needed, as Munster chairman Jerry O’Sullivan stated, but we would like to believe the primary reason for such a competition is providing a meaningful platform for those on the periphery of county panels rather than the U21s who have their own shop window. The intermediate championship it replaces had been weakened by counties’ varying interpretations of intermediate. There can be little equivocating about the age of a player.

Providing it doesn’t become a warm-up for the U21s and doesn’t impose on club fixtures, the U25 hurling championship could turn out to be a mainstay in the Munster calendar.

Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie