LockerRoom/TomHumphries BRIAN KERR. We'll come to Brian Kerr in a moment. It's a seasonal pastime, isn't it, to chip in with a few hundred words of completely idle speculation about who is on the (as yet non-existent) FAI short-list for the greatest job in the whole of the world.

So we'll get back to Brian Kerr in a minute, back to why he's a better choice than all the canny Scots, crafty cockneys and Dutch masters who've been mentioned so far.

First, though, let's remember Genesis and let's put it into its proper perspective. Roy Keane is vindicated certainly in the substance of his complaints about the Saipan adventure and the manner in which it was organised. I don't think, however, that even Roy believes that is why he went home or reacted so strongly when the week in Saipan was in fact over.

Roy Keane went home because the key relationship in his involvement with the Irish team broke down. He didn't respect Mick McCarthy as a manager. He was prepared to play out of his skin while some sort of detente existed between himself and Mick. Mick never truly understood the subtleties of all this.

Keane had the same difficulties with Saipan as the Genesis report alludes to, but he had other struggles as well. A long, difficult and fruitless season. An unfair hammering over the Niall Quinn testimonial. The sky dark all that week with what appeared to be tabloid vultures about to peck his marriage apart. A struggle with drink which we can assume from the hints he gives and the pressured life that he leads is never quite done. For a man of natural intensity it was a tough time, and the memory most of us who were in Saipan have of him at that time is catching glimpses of him walking alone on the island, his face dark and troubled. He needed a more enlightened management.

Now, whoever the FAI appoint to succeed Mick McCarthy, that appointment should not be predicated on the possibility of that person luring Roy back. Unintentionally, the last move in the bitter chess game between Keane and McCarthy may have resulted in a stalemate. McCarthy lost two key matches without Keane and then lost his job. He left a distinctly unappealing vista for Keane if he ever looks at returning. Away trips in the spring to Georgia and Albania in what will likely be an unsuccessful campaign, trips at a time when an increasingly injury-prone, 31-year-old player is coming to the busy end of the season? It will be no surprise if Roy declines that plateful.

So what have we learned that concerns Brian Kerr? I think we have learned that the notion that Kerr couldn't handle senior players is a dead duck. Un canard morte, as Gerard Houllier might say. Management is about (among other things) relationships. Mick McCarthy had wonderful relationships with most of his players and he understood the essence of Irish achievement, which was to inspire a team to be more than the sum of its parts.

Yet his relationship with his lynchpin player was dysfunctional. If we listen to the arguments against Kerr becoming the next Irish manager, they always boil down to whether senior players would respect him, as if Kerr were some incorrigible presenter of children's television who would require players to join in choruses concerning the fact that the wheels on the bus go round and round. By that reasoning McCarthy should have been the perfect choice to avoid just such a breach. A former World Cup captain, a man who was at his peak just as Roy Keane came to footballing adulthood, McCarthy had a consultative and close relationship with his own international manager and one would have thought that the same outlet would have been offered to Keane. It wasn't.

Can anyone really suggest that Brian Kerr's great strength, apart from his footballing nous, is his ability with people? From under-15 players right through to a couple of title-winning sides at St Pat's.

People talk about professional footballers and their needs? Try taking a bunch of late teens to Nigeria or Malaysia for a month and keeping them happy and focused. We are not, as Kerr himself would point out, talking about the academic staff of a dusty faculty. We are talking about footballers who from apprenticeship to retirement are seldom more than enlarged adolescents anyway. That's the whole attraction. Give them somebody who they can respect and who can provide for them and all other considerations get left aside.

It's tempting to see Brian Kerr as the central inspirational figure in a Dead Poets Society-type footballing drama, but the fact is that he has dealt with senior pros and he has dealt with young pros and what has distinguished him all along is his innate understanding of football and his ability with people. It's been said elsewhere - and because this column is not proud it will be said here again - if we were all French people there would be no argument here. The notion that professionals wouldn't respond to a coach of Brian Kerr's ability goes against the entire concept of professionalism, doesn't it?

Besides, the other names in the frame are much of a muchness. Kerr's other great attribute is that he has learned to get results with the hands dealt to him. Bryan Robson's extraordinarily ordinary management career has been built on the foundation of fat but misused chequebooks.

Kenny Dalglish I like, but his graph has been downwards. He inherited a fine team at Liverpool, bought a fine one with Jack Walker's money at Blackburn and struggled at Newcastle and Celtic. Wonderful player. Decent CV. But does he want the stress? Has he the energy to build the relationships that make an Irish international team respond on the pitch?

Joe Kinnear? I've never been a great fan but concede he has his footballing knowledge and a good smattering of respect throughout the game, and has learned how to cope with limited or fixed resources. Ditto Peter Reid, this column's choice after Brian Kerr. His achievements at Sunderland are generally under-rated within the game and they were brought about on an expenditure of virtually nothing.

What does it all mean though? The rumour mill has probably thrown up a couple of names on the list who aren't vaguely interested. This column doesn't even know for certain if Kerr would be interested, but the breezy dismissals of his abilities rankle. He has an innovative and broad footballing knowledge. I've never met a player who didn't respect him. Never seen a player who couldn't learn to do likewise.

He's here on the doorstep. Our best coach. We have a window in which to give him the opportunity to prove us right or wrong. What are we waiting for? Make that call.