[SaltergateBorn]

I have some sympathy with Doyle at the moment. Apparently his scoring record last season had been noticed by the FAI and he was on the fringe of being considered for the Ireland squad, but was told he wouldn`t be considered if he was playing at anything below Champ level; that was why he was desperate to play at that level. That`s the story I heard, anyway.

So - he now seems to have the choice of staying where he is and not playing or dropping down the leagues again. Neither of these would get him in contention for the Irish squad, it would appear and, as has been said, he`s now approaching 'make or break' age (if he hasn`t reached it already). His best best would seem to be to engineer a move to another Champ side who might still remember the way he was banging `em in last season. A loan is more likely, as I assume Cardiff signed in him on a 2 or 3 year contract which he`s only 6 months into so a permanent is likely to cost a lot more than the £750k that they paid for him. It depends on how big a hit Cardiff are prepared to take and how desperately they want him off the payroll.

A difficult one, but I hope it works out for him; he did well enough for us and we should wish him well in return.