International soccer: Former Ireland manager Johnny Giles said last night that Thursday's meeting with Paul Jewell about the Ireland manager's job had been his idea and that he had been motivated by the desire to avoid a candidate he admires being taken off the market before the recruitment process had even been put in place.

"I'm like all soccer lovers in Ireland, I want the team to do well, I want the best manager available. The FAI decided to get a selection panel but that panel hasn't been formed yet," he said on Newstalk's Off the Ballprogramme. "To lose a candidate like that would have been awful so I rang John Delaney and offered my services to go and speak to Jewell and he was happy for me to do that."

Giles said that the meeting with the former Wigan boss had gone well. "I met him and put the case that the job would be good for him. I said to Jewell I have no mandate to offer you the job or talk terms - the only mandate I have is to talk to him about the team and the future but I thought it went well.

"I've no plans to meet other candidates," he continued, "but if similar circumstances arose again I would offer my services again in an unofficial capacity - I would feel I had a duty to do it. I can't sit on my hands and do nothing and then complain about the FAI not going about it in the right way."