Waiting for Keano. Beckett said the tears of the world are a constant quantity. Well, right now they are constant and quantitative upon our hooded noggins as we stand pitchside in Malahide cowering against the gale. We drowned media rats get the first 15 minutes of the training session and then it’s off with us.
“Only two more minutes, lads,” warns the FAI’s press liaison. If she had any heart, she’d have kicked us out five minutes ago.
We got here early in case something happened. It didn’t. Twice. Roy was here along with Seamus McDonagh 45 minutes before the team arrived. They set out their bits and pieces on the pitch for the 25-minute session that would follow and then they walked across the car park. A dozen photographers and a handful of hacks trotted in lockstep.
“Anything to say Roy?”
“What’s your own version of it?”
“Why did you not want to sign the book?”
“Why is the world such a cruel, dark place? Roy? Roy?”
Okay, we didn’t ask the last one. We may as well have though. The answer would have been the same. Keane replied to the first question with, “Martin will be talking later”, and that was that. For the rest of it, he wore a fixed grin and just kept walking. He must think the world is an odd, odd place sometimes.
As for Martin talking later, the FAI had a video statement up on its website within half an hour. It was of O’Neill in a hotel chair reading from a sheet of paper, looking like he couldn’t believe that this is the kind of carry-on he was having to concern himself with the day before an international. Bound and forced by the national obsession with Keane to react in some manner, it meant the hostage-video feel of the footage wasn’t entirely out of place.
“The FAI and I have been fully briefed about the circumstances of what happened at the team hotel last night,” said O’Neill. “Roy asked that the Gardaí be called and he has notified them of what happened. While this process is ongoing, we are unable to say more at this point.
"However, I can say that having been made aware of the facts, that Roy has both my full support and the full support of the FAI and John Delaney. We are now focussed, as we have been all week, on the game in hand and we won't be saying any more about this issue."
And so we slunk home, sodden and frozen. There was actual news to report from the session - James McCarthy and Glenn Whelan both flew home this morning and are out of the Scotland game. But that was a snippet passed on by the media liaison - none of the team or management was available for a word.
O'Neill and Robbie Keane will do their pre-match press conference in Glasgow later this afternoon. Wonder what the first question will be?
