WHEN Mick McCarthy

was asked at his unveiling as the new Ireland manager why he’d brought Robbie Keane into his coaching staff, he said Keane had suggested it himself.

Then added: “At first I thought: ‘You cheeky b **** cks’.” Was it just a coincidence McCarthy chose the same testicular analogy that a different Keane, Roy, famously yelled at him before his walk-out in Saipan when he told him

to stick his teamtalks “up your b ***** cks”.

Or was it the kick in the groin area McCarthy had been waiting to deliver to Keane for 16 years. And when better to deliver it than when he gets back his Ireland job after Keane had been dismissed from that set-up by the FAI for failing.

Quality trolling, I’d say.