TIPPING POINT:Occupy those sofas, stake a claim to those mini-fridges, you pay far too much for that Sky Sports package not to settle in for the final of the darts tonight, writes MALACHY CLERKIN

WELL, THANK Christ that’s over. For a spell yesterday afternoon, there existed the semi-serious prospect that this column’s New Year’s resolution to go out for a daily jog would overcome this column’s rest-of-year resolution to do no such thing. Sometime around 4pm, good sense prevailed and it was decided the holding in abeyance of a pre-40s heart-attack was a project that could wait for another day. Hey, if Samoa can get rid of a whole Friday just because it feels like it, then truly all doors are open now.

In a way, I did it for you. You, with your gut and your chins and the still faint smell in your kitchen of the pizza you ordered in last night because you couldn’t face rattling together a stir-fry. (By the by, since New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, surely last night must have been the take-out equivalent of Black Friday in the US. I have visions of the only traffic on the roads being delivery men with 1,000-yards stares, endlessly circling through estates and streets while they slowly lose their minds. There’s surely an apocalypse movie in there somewhere. A Brendan Gleeson vehicle called They Messed Up The Order).

Anyway, yes, it was for you. You, the forgotten. You, the ignored. Ever notice how all these end-of-year review things tend to dwell on the obvious? They strap on the old rose-tinteds and God-up all these Rorys and Dricos and Ninas and Katies and serve it to the rest of us drones as if that’s what we want to be reminded of in the dog days of winter. Ne’er a thought for the schlubs left behind, the Couldn’t Be Arsed Army whose diligent non-efforts down the years have cleared a path for these gilded few.

Well, tonight thank God it’s you instead of them. On the first Monday morning of the year – and did you know there’s an extra Monday this year? That’s right, 53 instead of 52. The Troika must have slipped it in with the budget – a salute. Here’s to the quitters.

Here’s to the guys and gals who could have done it if they’d felt like it but decided against it in the end.

Here’s to the 99 per cent. Occupy those sofas, stake a claim to those mini-fridges. You pay far too much for that Sky Sports package not to settle in for the final of the darts tonight. And in these austere times, it would be the height of Daddy Warbucksian crassness to have access to ESPN and not tune into the Rose Bowl afterwards. It’d be like burning money in front of hungry kids.

Here’s to the GAA teams starting back training this week with barely a dozen heads in the dressingroom. Here’s to the veteran full back who, upon seeing a car belonging to an old Army friend of the new manager at the first session of the year, turns his own car around and fires off a text about getting stuck late in work.

And to the knacky corner forward who hangs in there for a couple of circuits before deciding the hammer has taken a twinge and badly needs a rub down. It’s a long road, lads. Nothing more useless than a January hero.

Here’s to gym memberships, the confession boxes of the age. Bless me, Gym Lord, I haven’t thinned – it’s been seven months since my last tough session. Here’s to using them for a few weeks before vanishing into the Waster Protection Programme, where no washboard-abbed, far-too-cheery-by-half bozo in a polo shirt can hurt you ever again. Here’s to queues this week for cross trainers and treadmills that will have cobwebs on them by mid-March. And to deciding to give it another go in about 11½ months’ time.

Here’s to knowing better than everyone else and going your own way. An intercounty manager told me last summer that before one of his first challenge matches with his new team, the burning question from the players was which of three different systems they should play.

Three in midfield? Four across the half-back line? Dreary old man to man?

“Tell you what lads,” said the manager. “How about we try kicking the ball to each other and catching it. And then maybe laying off a pass to man making a run. Let’s try that for a start, eh?”

The players rolled their eyes and shook their heads. Dinosaur stuff. At the time, I nodded along with the manager and dutifully agreed that this kind of attitude was what had these players down among the also-rans. But you know what? Also-ran is a much abused term, thrown around like it’s forever and always a bad thing.

This Monday morning, it’s hats-off to the also-rans – may they also not run if and when it looks like being more trouble than it’s worth?

And you know what else? Here’s to Carlos Tevez. That’s right, the Martin Luther King of not giving a rat’s ass. Here, friends, is an explorer, a flag-planter. And is that flag planted right at the peak of his own personal Everest? No, it is not. It is planted right where he feels he can be bothered planting it and not a penny more. What a hero. What an inspiration.

There is a school of thought out there that holds Carlos Tevez up to be everything that’s wrong with the game. The supreme irony is this school is populated mostly by jowly sports journalists who were, in some cases, handy enough players in their day. The big difference between them and Tevez is they gave up trying to make it to the Premier League when they were 13 whereas he gave up after not only getting there but rising to the very top of it.

And once he made it, he shrugged and decided it was all just a bit too much hassle in the castle. So he packed his bags and went off to play golf in the sun.

It’s not the kind of thing that will ever win him Sports Personality Of The Year. And, of course, tipping the hat to the little Argentine scut isn’t the kind of thing you’re supposed to do in polite company. But as you gaze out the window this cold Monday morning and shiver at the thought of hauling your bare blue legs through a couple or three miles of well-meaning New Year’s resolution, just know that Carlos Tevez represents the quitter in all of us.

So here’s to him and here’s to you. If you feel the need to go and run 5k, have at it. If you feel you’d rather go and lie down, well the year will still be new tomorrow.