Soca it to 'em
As a spectacle this may have been the televisual equivalent of watching paint dry, but if you will go all the way to Austria to play Trinidad & Tobago, then the god of equilibrium dictates you're at a disadvantage to begin with.
Every Welsh fan's dream game - Trinidad & Tobago away, was just a cruel apparition of what could have been - sun, sand, sea and sexy soca soccer - instead the hardy travelling 200 Welsh fans had to contend with the delights of the slightly less delicious landlocked Graz.
Whoever arranges these fixtures needs a map, a sense of humour and lessons in marriage guidance counselling. Negotiating your way from Bilbao to Graz in six days through various modes of transportation was the Welsh fans' equivalent of Frodo's journey from Middle Earth with that pesky ring. So congratulations to those fans who made both trips. I hope it was worth it and that your wives are still talking to you.
Leaving fixture quibbles to one side, the unthinkable happened again - Wales won another game of international football.
So they were friendlies, but we've now played two thirds of World Cup Finals Group B - England, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden and our record stands at played 3, won 1, drawn 1, lost 1. On this form we should at least qualify for the World Cup quarter finals!*
Okay, so I'm being flippant but as confidence boosters go, the last week of Wales international football action has given most believers food for thought that maybe we won't be the pushovers that most pundits imagine we will be come the arrival of the imminent Euro 2008 qualifiers.
Let's consider the facts - Earnie scores his first Wales goals for two years, Southampton wunderkid Gareth Bale shatters Lewin Nyatanga's still fresh-smelling youngest international appearance record and we record back-to-back victories against one team packed with La Liga players and another against a team that will be participating in this year's World Cup Finals. Add this to the recent under-21 victotries and the future's so bright I might need to wear shades . . . to paraphrase that song from long-forgotten early eighties skewiff popsters Timbuk 3.
Of course, come the evening of September 2nd and I'm drowing my sorrows in one of Prague's many fine hostelries after Wales have slipped to a record defeat against the might of the Czech Republic, then the world might not look so rose-tintedly incandescent.
Still, the beer will taste nice . . .
* Line courtesy of Wales manager John Toshack during his post-match interview with the BBC Wales' Rob Phillips. Nice quip Tosh sir!