English League Championship/ Derby 1 Sunderland 2: The stadium clock showed five minutes past three and already he was prowling the outer reaches of his technical area, all bulging neck muscles and frantically gesticulating arms.
The assistant referee who had drawn the short straw felt his ears begin to burn. The fourth official stayed on his haunches, watching intently and weighing up the wisdom of intervention.
The Pride Park crowd craned their necks to catch a glimpse of one of the game's most incendiary characters spitting fire and venom upon the hapless officials moments into his very first match in charge.
They were disappointed. Roy Keane sat in his shirt-sleeves and scarcely allowed so much as a nerve-ending to twitch in anger, while Billy Davies, his Derby County counterpart, stayed on his feet.
Forget shabby World Cup training grounds and posh prawn sandwiches, and digest Roy Keane's new managerial mantra: cool and calm.
It was an accomplished debut from Keane in a city where they know a thing or two about the cult of managerial personality, having recently renamed the A52 trunk road in memory of their favourite son.
As Keane swept down Brian Clough Way on Saturday, perhaps it stirred some memories of the genius of the man who brought him to England from Cobh Ramblers in 1989 for a mere £20,000.
If he resorted to a few choice Cloughisms in the dressingroom at half-time, when his team trailed to a 45th minute goal from Matt Oakley, Keane was not saying.
"Very little," he insisted, when asked what he had said to inspire his new team to their stirring second-half comeback. One gets the feeling Roy Keane is hardly lacking in other motivational methods.
"It will take a little bit of time to get used to it, but sitting on the sidelines was okay," said Keane afterwards, cutting a content and personable figure in the interview room.
In truth it had not been a day for finger-jabbing or ear-bending. Gelling with five debutants in the first half, Keane's team were always likely to recover against a Derby side still in the process of considerable transition.
It took a full 15 minutes for Keane to snap out of his statuesque pose, offering Robbie Elliott warm applause for a clattering challenge on Arturo Lupoli on the near-side touchline.
And a perceived handball in the Derby penalty box on the half hour kindled Keane's ire, sending him marching purposefully to the touchline to make his feelings known.
But it was the two goals in three minutes around the hour mark, the first a point-blank poke from Chris Brown, the second a classic left-foot sweep from Ross Wallace, which truly got Keane's blood flowing.
Suddenly he was up off the bench, punching the air and trading congratulations with his coaching staff, his managerial career started in the most fitting fashion imaginable.
"We could have kept the ball better in the last few minutes and you still hope to improve but I am taking nothing away from the players," said Keane, sounding every inch the experienced boss.
But there were no sick parrots or games of two halves. He will not take the next game as it comes. The sheepskin and fedora will stay locked away.
"They have got a very good manager in place now in Roy and they can certainly go on from this and be fighting for promotion at the end of the season," said a suitably becalmed Davies afterwards.
Wherever the season takes him, Roy Keane, manager, will remain very much his own man. And cool and calm or otherwise, woe betide anybody who gets in his way.
DERBY: Bywater, Edworthy (Bolder 88), Leacock, Michael Johnson, Camara, Barnes, Oakley, Smith, Peschisolido (Seth Johnson 56), Howard, Lupoli. Subs Not Used: Grant, Malcolm, Nyatanga. Booked: Edworthy. Goals: Oakley 45.
SUNDERLAND: Alnwick, Delap, Cunningham, Varga, Robbie Elliott, L Miller, Kavanagh, Whitehead, Wallace, Connolly (Stephen Elliott 84), Brown. Subs Not Used: Ward, Hysen, Leadbitter, Neill Collins. Booked: Varga, Brown, Delap, Wallace, Kavanagh. Goals: Brown 62, Wallace 64.
Referee: A Bates (Staffordshire).
