LockerRoom/Tom Humphries Isn't it strange that there was even a suggestion that Roy Keane would be booed at Tolka Park on Saturday? Isn't it odd that some people actually paid their money and turned up to boo? Some folks live in a universe of total certainty about everything.

I don't know what troubles Roy Keane carries around in his head, but I imagine they are considerable and that they are amplified by a nature which is given to brooding. I don't know what went through his head in those days in late May and early June when he was at the centre of every Irish conversation.

I don't know much about him except that he plays with a passion that is unique and that he radiates a complexity which makes him the most interesting character in football. I suppose if you can't see the passion and you can't establish for yourself that the complexity is even there, well, then you might feel entitled to come along and boo. I don't know.

I do know that in Saipan he and Mick McCarthy got themselves into one of those intractable human situations where pride and front and well-festered resentments smoked their vision, where the size of the audience daunted them, where the public aspect of every gesture distorted all movements.

I reckon, too, that neither man was 100 per cent right and that neither man was 100 per cent wrong and that both men have paid the price. Mick McCarthy, after six years of bad luck as manager, had determined that he would enjoy his World Cup. Instead it aged him.

Mick is a straightforward enough guy, I think, but there is a lot of front there, too, and no matter what he says you know that in his heart he will wonder about things. Looking for a golden goal against 10 Spaniards in Suwon? You'd want Roy? Looking for five penalty-takers? You'd want Roy? Going on perhaps to a quarter-final against South Korea? Who ya gonna call?

And watching it all? I imagine it hurt Roy Keane desperately. One minute the country is split in two about whether you should go back to the World Cup. Next minute the streets are deserted and the population has evaporated into a great cloud of delirium. Memo from nation to Roy: we get along without you very well.

Of course we don't. We had a wonderful World Cup, we snatched great enjoyment from the jaws of depressing controversy and at the end we looked at a team which had grown to an extent that we talked about them as future contenders.

Yet, when we reconvene for a friendly in Helsinki next month and for the European Championship opener in Moscow on September 7th, we will be without Steve Staunton and Niall Quinn and Alan Kelly.

Roy mightn't have thanked those three, and they were certainly the victims of a campaign of vicious misinformation, but it was they who held the Irish squad together in the days after Saipan. And it was Staunton who marshalled the back and Quinn who came on like a fire engine in times of trouble.

Look back and imagine those games without Staunton or Quinn. Staunton's defending and his sublime passes, especially the one to set up our first goal against Saudi Arabia; Quinn's sheer presence, his flick on for Robbie Keane's goal, the penalty he won against Spain. At key moments on and off the pitch we relied on players who will no longer be with us.

Come September we can't move off the blocks without Roy Keane. Our greatest player, one of the greatest in the world, is in his prime. He has more to give than any other single player.

Roy Keane said things to Mick McCarthy in Saipan that were unforgivable. The process doesn't have to be one of apology and absolution, the argument doesn't have to end with one man the winner, standing with his foot on the other man's chest.

Roy Keane wouldn't be the first footballer, or the first worker even, to perform for a boss he neither likes nor respects.

It's a question of professionalism. If the team benefits from Roy Keane's presence he should be picked. If he is picked he should give his all and not seek to undermine Mick McCarthy any further.

And it's a question of what is due. Roy Keane's career deserves to be crowned by a majestic appearance at a major international tournament. Irish football deserves the best senior team it can field. Mick McCarthy deserves some peace.

Should the situation continue, we will have the Roy Keane argument before every international game for the next few years. That would be as tedious as it would be demeaning to all parties concerned.

Personally, I would like to lock Roy and Mick in a room somewhere. The room would have an open window 12 feet above the ground and would be their only means of escape. To access the window they must collaborate. One must give the other a boost up and then reach out his hand to be pulled through.

This, though, isn't the column that either man turns to straight away when in need of advice. They have their own Agony Aunts. However, I think all of us in the troubled Agony Aunt community would be happy if one party knocked on the other's door sometime in the next month and said either let's talk about this till it's over or let's forget about this. Probably that won't happen either.

In which case Mick should just select Roy for Moscow with no preconditions. The apology thing has got out of hand. We know, I think, that Roy wanted to play the World Cup and that he has regrets. We know that Mick would have taken him back.

Why stumble over some formula of words? Why not say, "Look Roy, you're picked. The ball is in your court. I'm big enough to have you back for the benefit of the team. Are you big enough to come back? I'm big enough to get on with the job knowing that my best player has said things to my face in front of other players and professionals that I could scarcely have imagined being whispered behind my back in a lifetime of football. Are you big enough to come and give it everything?

"By your own account, you didn't respect me before Saipan but you gave it everything. Can you do the same again? Is it about Irish football or is it about you and me? Which is bigger? I've made my choice."

Roy said in Saipan before the final showdown that the European Championships in Portugal would be his swansong in a green jersey. Surely, though, even a hardened realist such as himself has the odd daydream about the World Cup in Germany in 2006:

He's not yet 35 and he's the general in a central midfielder partnership with Colin Healy. Around him he has players like Steve Carr, John O'Shea, Andy O'Brien, Steve Finnan, Damien Duff, Robbie Keane, Richie Sadlier, Willo Flood, Sean Thornton and more. It's probably the best Irish side ever to travel to a big tournament.

The temperatures are right, the travel is manageable, he's happy. That's the way to say goodbye.