When it came to yesterday's announcement of the travelling party for next week's game in Bydgoszcz, Poland, the FAI were playing it amusingly cool.

The official statement did no more than list Roy Keane as one (the last one) of eight players recalled to the Republic of Ireland squad, while Brian Kerr, grinning, made a point of commenting at one stage during the press conference in Dublin that, "there are 23 other players in the squad".

Nobody argued.

For a start, no one had bothered to count the others. Why would they? Roy's return was the only story that was going to matter.

For more than an hour yesterday Kerr answered questions about the Manchester United midfielder, and the Irish manager gave his thoughts on how the 32-year-old's talents might be best used during the next couple of years.

There would, he said, be no team meetings, special arrangements or dispensations for the former captain. Keane, the Dubliner insisted, had made himself available on the same terms as every other player and he would be treated like any other from the time he joins up with the squad, probably in Dublin this Sunday afternoon.

Kenny Cunningham will remain captain of the team, not just next week but for the foreseeable future, and no concessions had been sought or granted by either side when Kerr and Keane met a week and a half ago to discuss the Corkman's return from international exile.

Kerr conceded that there might be occasions where Keane may not be required to play friendly international matches, but he maintained that this did not in any way suggest preferential treatment.

"Some special handling is sometimes required of different players for different reasons," he said, citing his recent decision not to call up players involved in the English FA Cup semi-finals for the Czech game, "and older players can't always play in every game. What I will say, though, is that I'll treat him the same as other players of the same age."

The suggestion is that the indulgences under Mick McCarthy, who exempted Keane from the room-sharing arrangements and repeatedly overlooked it when the player joined up with the squad a day late, will no longer be available to the Corkman, although Kerr refused to rule anything out.

"If I do decide that any player is going to come in late," he said, "I'll do it after taking into consideration what's best for the team, the player, his club and anybody else concerned. But it will be my decision."

His firm message was that there is no special deal.

In other circumstances Keane's inclusion in the travelling party for the trip to Poland next week could have been interpreted as evidence in support of the midfielder's good intentions.

He did not play in an away friendly for McCarthy after February 1997. And that was in Cardiff, not a small industrial city 200 km from Warsaw.

The reality, though, is that given the timing of the game it would have been embarrassing for all concerned if Keane did not travel next week, and it will be at the end of May and start of June, when Ireland are due to play four friendly games, one at home, the others in England and Holland, that we will get a firmer indication of what, if any, new arrangements have been put in place to govern his participation in non-competitive games.

For all the well-publicised problems even before that fateful trip to Saipan, however, Kerr took time out to observe that McCarthy's handling of his former captain had been generally better than the now Sunderland manager is generally credited with.

"Mick managed it in his way and got the best out of Roy in many internationals," he said. "He managed it at a time when there was pressure because issues with injuries and Manchester United. I'll do it my way."

He expressed confidence in his ability to smooth out any issues that may arise within the squad over the midfielder's return, and he issued a general appeal to the team's supporters to accept that everyone had moved on a long way since May of two years ago.

"I understand that there are supporters and some players from the past, who didn't have broken service, who feel a lingering annoyance. All I can say is that I hope everybody is mature enough to say that we've all moved on and that we have to get on with our lives."

In relation to members of the current squad, he added: "I made it clear that the path was there for Roy to come back and I don't really envisage any problems now that he has made his decision.

"Time moves on and it's a couple of years since Japan and Korea. I think the issues there can be managed and sorted out."

Some of the players who have joined or become more prominent in the squad since the World Cup, he observed, would benefit from Keane's return in terms of their development, while the whole squad would be stronger for his return.

"I've made the decision and I think that anybody who has the best interests of Irish football at heart, and who asks themselves whether it is good or bad for Irish football, would have to say it's the right thing to do.

"You'd have to be out of your mind to suggest that he can't bring something to the squad."