So, you're one of the folk out there who believes Roy Keane doesn't give a toss about playing for his country? Take it you missed his interview with RTÉ yesterday evening? If you read the transcript or heard it on radio it doesn't count. You needed to see his eyes, that muscle flexing in his jaw, to really, really understand just how he feels about it all.
Trust me. He wants to be at the World Cup even more than Mick McCarthy and his ghost-writer - the man who asked Ireland to boo Roy Keane at Lansdowne Road (sensitive choice of ghost-writer, Mick - must have been a good deal) - appear to revel in his absence from the very same tournament.
Perhaps you're one of the Law under-grads (see Letters page every bloody day) still toiling to get the degree you think will make you a cut above the rest and who resents a (spit) under-educated (sneer) footballer being crowned a doctorate of Law?
Even if he's already achieved infinitely more and inspired and thrilled and given more sheer, unadulterated joy to those folk blessed with a pulse than you will screw in the course of your professional lifetime.
Oooops. Steady. Such emotion. Can't be having that. Forgive me. Have just watched Roy Keane's emotional interview on RTÉ and, damn it, your honour, I'm feeling emotional.
Hands up. I had the privilege and honour of watching him live and uninterrupted (apart from the missiles being thrown by the Juventus supporters in the tier above me) in Turin's Stadio delle Alpi in 1999 when he produced, quite simply, a sporting display of such majesty and selflessness that it damn well made me cry.
Literally. Guilty, your honour. And proud of it. If you weren't there you'll never understand.
Before that night I classed myself as an agnostic. After that night I knew there was a God. Because He allowed me witness this magnificent creature's finest hour in the flesh. He could have delayed my flight from Gatwick. He chose not to. Despite the fog. God is good.
When I read the views of the miserable begrudgers, who could never tolerate Keane's success long before now, and heard the opinions of the fools who think Ireland is better off without his passion and drive, I thought.if only you were lucky enough to be in the Stadio delle Alpi that night. If only you saw what I saw.
Maybe then you'd reconsider your tired, trite, yawn-inducing declaration that this lad is only in it for the money . You know nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"I would be happier if the Irish nation stopped talking about Roy Keane," Mick McCarthy told the London Evening Standard yesterday, before proceeding to speak at length about Roy Keane (as he had also done to yesterday's Daily Mail).
"I will not talk about him again for the duration of our World Cup bid," he continued, before talking some more about ... Roy Keane.
I will, I won't. I won't, I will. If the Irish defence is as indecisive against Cameroon next Saturday morning we can turn out the lights on our World Cup hopes.
The spinners have been at work since that infamous team meeting in Saipan last week - it's been Roy Keane versus Mick McCarthy, 22 players and roughly 10 backroom staff. "I didn't want to go through the media, I didn't want to be doing this interview today, I didn't want to be speaking to the Mail over the weekend, but when I got back in to London on Saturday morning my solicitor said: 'Roy, you need to say something because there's an imbalance to the story' and I thought 'he's right'," Keane told RTÉ last night.
"I might be a lot of things, but I'm not a liar," he said, "I try to live my life as honest as I can. I've made mistakes, probably more than anybody. I've done things I'm shamed of over the years, but I'm sticking to my guns, I believe my gut feeling was right.what happened last week, to me, was wrong ... I wouldn't wish it on anybody".
McCarthy accused Keane of letting down his country. Good one Mick! Instead of getting down on your bended knees and thanking Roy Keane for getting YOU to the World Cup you smeared him, the player who dragged your team, screaming, to these finals.
McCarthy, Staunton, Quinn and Co wouldn't be within an ass's roar of Japan this week if it wasn't for Roy Keane. And they know it. Last night, on RTÉ, Keane let his dignified mask slip. He let us know that he is hurt by this and that he cares about it a lot more than he should. "I'd love to play in the World Cup," he said. And by jaysus, did he mean it. More fool he. He's rocked the boat and, as we know, there is no place for rebels with a cause in Irish football.
