This time last year, the big announcement came that Glenn Irwin would be making his debut at the Isle of Man TT Races but the Honda Racing rider is no closer to setting off down Bray Hill and now faces making his first appearance a full two years later than scheduled.

But while saddened by the decision made to cancel the 2021 event, the Carrickfergus rider was in a very pragmatic mood when he spoke to bikesportnews.com on Monday, fully recognising the bigger picture that ultimately prevailed.

“I believe the correct decision’s been made and at the end of the day, the Manx government have to protect their residents. The TT obviously brings a lot to the island but the Covid pandemic brings a lot more and it would be a disaster if there was an outbreak of the virus after letting in an influx of people. The bigger picture has obviously been looked at," Irwin told bikesportnews.com.

“Looking at it from a selfish point of view, I’m obviously saddened by the cancellation as it’ll be now 2022 when I make debut, two years later than scheduled. A lot of thought and planning had gone into everything before it was all announced so, from a personal point of view, it’s frustrating that I’ve got to wait another year.

“But the bottom line is that the cancellation doesn’t change my long term TT plans. I have a five-year plan in terms of how I want to approach the TT and how I want it to pan out over that time scale so nothing’s changed in that respect; it’s just starting later than scheduled, that’s all.”

“Who I feel for most is the Manx people. I have a number of friends over there, people like Conor (Cummins) who have businesses to run. They’ve coped for one year without the event and have now got to do so for another year so I hope the businesses involved who are going to suffer will be looked after.

“This time last year, I didn’t know a lot about the TT but now I know an awful lot more and what goes into it. I know what it means to people and I know how it affects livelihoods so I know a lot of careful thought will have gone into the decision.

“From my perspective, it is what it is so, hopefully come 2022, we’ll all be back because we all love the TT. The dream scenario will to be still with the same team as that’s the dream I have and how I want my TT debut to go.

"I’ll be able to make use of the additional time to do more studying and more homework in preparation for that first practice session.”