I think a slight touch of realism is needed here.
Rovers beating Brann is excellent.
Dundalk apparently controlling large parts of their game but ultimately unable to score over 210 minutes - against ten men for a small part of that - is a bit worrying. They weren't particularly impressive in the bits of the games I caught. Had they lost on penalties, would the overall view still be "very good"? Not sure. But the overall performance would have been the same.
Cork improved at least, but an apparently shambolic first leg has led to a first ever elimination by a Luxembourg side. Not entirely unexpected, but hardly very good.
Pats maybe exceeded expectations in only losing 4-1 overall. As with Cork, the second leg was better than the First, but 4-1 is a long way off previous LoI v Sweden ties.
Not meant as a dig at Cork or Pats of course; even their own fans were pessimistic. But one very good result doesn't really make a very good night I think.
In terms of rankings, we're back up to 38th, which is where we started. We've passed out Moldova and have been passed out by Latvia. There's still five leagues within 0.500 of us, so we could drop yet. Or we could catch the couple of leagues 0.500 above us yet.
3-year total still has us 48th, so Dundalk and Cork's run in 2016 is still holding us up a lot.
I think last night was no more than an enjoyably average one tbh