SOCCER: There may have been amazement in some quarters when Roy Keane arrived at the Stadium of Light a couple of months back after patching up his differences with Niall Quinn.

Still, the fact at least one good feud was brewing gave rise to a good deal of anticipation and interest promptly soared in the otherwise innocuous encounter between Sunderland and Wolves then scheduled for November 25th.

Sky Sports promptly took up an option to televise the match and brought it forward 24 hours to facilitate the coverage.

That decision looked a little less inspired this week when it was revealed Keane and his one-time "gaffer" Mick McCarthy are on speaking terms again and interest in the fixture may tumble further after the Corkman observed rather serenely yesterday that it was "nice to put these things to bed".

"In life, you have to move on," remarked Keane at a press conference held to preview his side's game at Norwich this afternoon. "It was like when I came to this club with Niall and stuff like that.

"It is good to move on in life," he added, citing another key tenet of his new philosophy. "Life is too short," he continued, coming close perhaps to exhausting the list.

Pressed for details on what was said between the two men after McCarthy rang up looking to take Sunderland's Neill Collins on loan he preferred, he said, to keep the matter private.

"I am not going to go into the conversation. It is done and dusted. But we were both happy to talk things over.

"Mick rang up about a player - he did not go through an agent or the chairman or a friend of a player - he rang me direct, which was much appreciated. I was quite happy to do the deal. We had a good chat, but it would be wrong for me to go into the details of it."

The conversation is the first between the pair since Keane left Saipan after criticising McCarthy's preparations for the 2002 World Cup finals in an interview with The Irish Times.

Keane admitted that the incident was one of many occasions during his career when his strong will proved costly but he showed particular desire to make up with McCarthy when asked about the situation immediately after taking on his current job.

Yesterday, however, he was positive about his latest rapprochement with an old foe. "It was all very amicable," he said with an almost callous disregard for viewing figures and newspaper sales.

"We did chat about what has gone on before and it is nice to put these things to bed. I was quite happy and Mick was, so that is the end of it, I suppose."