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" I am chuffed, at least it is over and done with now. I go on holiday on Wednesday so I am looking forward to that. I finished at Sunderland last season and I went on pre-season down to Wolves and obviously Mick McCarthy gave me 50-odd caps for Ireland, so he offered me a contract down there and I turned it down.
" When I look back at it now maybe I shouldn't have because they went on and won the league and I would have had a nice medal. You make your decisions though and you have to live by them, at least it is over and done with now and I just want to focus on trying to do the best that I can for Carlisle.
" It is a fantastic bunch of people, from John Nixon to the chairman (Andrew Jenkins) the gaffer (Greg Abbott), I knew him when I was at Leeds. He was looking after the young lads then but I saw him a few times. Obviously I know Graham Kavanagh and Michael Bridges that were there last season, and a great bunch of other players. So hopefully me coming in I can try to help them and hopefully we can get a few more quality players to help the team to progress.
" It is early, a few players have been released and there were a few players on loan as well that have gone back to their clubs. The main thing is that obviously it is a difficult time for the manager, not for myself, I go away on holiday but for him now he has got the difficult task to try to find players to come to the club. Hopefully he can do that to help strengthen the squad and to make the team better to succeed.
" I must be honest that the main person that made me sign was Kav because I live across the road from him. When I was at Sunderland I got on pretty well with them so I was back training at Sunderland at that time and he just asked me if I would like to come and play for a month up at Carlisle. I was kind of thinking in my mind that I was just focusing on the season coming up. "
" He told me to come up for a day and take it as it goes. I came up obviously and had a chat with the gaffer and never looked back. I played the first game and got man of the match in that, unfortunately I broke my hand and missed the next couple of games but then played the second game against Cheltenham, scored the free-kick and we had two players sent off.
" Then it was nice to keep a clean sheet in the third game against Millwall and most importantly for the team to stay in the division. There are some big games next season, Norwich, Charlton, Southampton, Leeds, so we have got a lot of games to look forward to.
" I had twelve good years at Leeds, I went over to Spain and enjoyed my time over there. I am just 31 so I just want to try to play as long as I can. Hopefully I can come in and do well for the team and we can push on. I was playing centre-half last season but when I spoke to the manager when he signed me, he said that I was coming in here not as a centre-half.
" OK, Peter Murphy was injured at the time, he said just to play at centre-half for this game. Then he said that of course he was bringing me in as a left-back but just to try to fill in at centre-half, so hopefully he doesn't have the same idea for next season as well. I don't want to say that the free-kicks will all be mine but it is always good if you have got someone else, it makes the keeper think which player is going to trouble them, so hopefully there is a few of us. "