Planet Football: There are, as we know, plenty of young fellas in the Irish squad these days, and one of our spies at the team hotel in Portmarnock last week was reminded of just how young some of them are.

Two of the players, both of whom started against Wales, were spotted sitting in the hotel's internet corner . . . checking their Bebo pages. Aw, bless.

Quotes of the week

"If you keep picking the same players who are not performing all the time, it's insanity, you get the same results. We all know what players we are talking about. There is a very fine line between loyalty and stupidity. A very fine line."

- Roy Keane, waving his inflatable shillelagh, gets behind the Boys in Green ahead of the Welsh match.

"It's been way over the top. I haven't murdered anyone. No courses could have taught me what I've had to go through."

- Steve Staunton pleads not guilty in the face of all the criticism he's receiving this weather.

"What came back to us was that we were booed off the pitch and that's wrong. That's propaganda, that's like going over to Russia 50 years ago. But that seems to be the way at the moment."

- Staunton again, this time denying reports that Irish fans loudly expressed their displeasure at the performance in San Marino as the team left the pitch. Which, eh, they did.

"If there was no good football or no bad football you'd have a Douglas and a Carsley in every team in the world."

- Johnny Giles, after Saturday's game, pays tribute to Ireland's engine room.

"Let's stop Wales from playing? But they can't play!"

- Liam Brady, after Saturday's game, querying whether both Jonathan Douglas and Lee Carsley were needed to play in a team playing a team who can't play, if you know what we mean.

"This is a step towards nowhere."

- Eamon Dunphy, after Saturday's game, tingling, he's so excited about the future.

A British affair

One of last week's pitchside press conferences by Steve Staunton, after a training session ahead of Saturday's game, was a run-of-the-mill, entirely non-controversial affair, until the following point was put to the manager: "Steve, some people suggest it's going to be a familiar game, a Premiership type game, because it's between two British sides, obviously . . ."

Staunton appeared not to spot the B word, but the television reporter's colleagues did, and a few quizzical glances were thrown in his direction. The key piece of information we should mention here is that the reporter in question is Irish. We'd be divilish enough to name him, but we're from the "before throwing stones in glasshouses remember, there but for the Grace of God" school of hackery, so we'll say nothing.

Bruce in text trouble

We're not sure if Alex Bruce has Steve Staunton or Don Givens' numbers in his mobile phone, but for his sake we hope he doesn't. According to yesterday's Sunday Peoplethe Republic of Ireland under-21 international, and son of Steve, had his phone temporarily pinched by an Ipswich team-mate who texted just about everyone in his contacts list. "The centre-half's agent got an abusive text asking when the "lazy b*****d" was going to get him a move. And, worst of all, some of his mum's mates received messages which were, well, suggestive to say the least. "As you'd expect from the son of a Manchester United legend, said list contains the numbers of some high-profile stars . . . including Roy Keane, who got a text telling him in no uncertain terms exactly what Bruce thought of him," said the People. There goes that move to Sunderland.

More quotes of the week

"After two minutes we will normally have massacred him so much that he will have to leave the pitch on a stretcher."

- Belgian goalkeeper Stijn Stijnen revealing his country's deadly plans for dealing with Cristiano Ronaldo in their Euro qualifier against Portugal.

"I didn't mean to say that we have to specifically get Ronaldo, but we have to play hard against the Portuguese players. I'm not saying Belgium have to break anyone's leg, but we have to play with character and not spare our opponents' tibias."

- Stijnen, after getting in to a whole heap of trouble for his original comments, backs down by digging a little bit deeper.

"It just goes to show that cricketers can be as stupid as footballers."

- Graham Taylor, the former England manager, defends/slaughters Andrew Flintoff after Pedalo-Gate. We're not sure which.

"If England fail in Israel it will cause an earthquake in football. People say McClaren will stay if England lose but, in my opinion, they will drink his blood. They'll finish him once and for all."

- Israeli agent Pini Zahavi forecasting trouble head for Steve McClaren if England failed to do the business in Israel. Uh oh.

"He can get young players who are upstarts, boisterous boys, and bring them under his wing and make good players out of them. Look at Wayne Rooney? If he had stayed in Liverpool he might be in jail by now."

- Bruce Grobbelaar pays tribute to Alex Ferguson, while losing every friend he ever made on Merseyside.

"At Chelsea, everyone's 'geezer'. 'All right, geezer?', 'Morning, geezer'. Some of the foreign boys come in like Sheva, who can hardly speak a word of English, and within a couple of weeks, all he can say is 'Alright, geezer'."

- Frank Lampard, the Special Geezer's favourite midfielder, reveals to Nutsmagazine how top geezer Andriy Shevchenko's English is coming along.