Sideline Cut: No matter what ultimately transpires from Roy Keane's intriguing and flirtatious allusions to wearing the green once more, we can be confident Brian Kerr will be guided by good sense in any communication on the matter, writes Keith Duggan.

Although the Irish manager's overtures to Keane were firmly but politely declined last year, Kerr is not likely to let hubris or insecurity or paranoia prevent him from opening further discussions with the Manchester United captain. He is also clever enough to ensure any such entreaties remain firmly behind the scenes until he has got a definite and unequivocal assertion from Keane that he would be happy to return.

The dream scenario - and it is not impossible - is that of Keane presented to the Irish public on a chilly autumn night, perhaps on Jones's Road, with the aristocrats of France shivering at the raw and ferocious respect behind the thundering ovation.

The visit of Brazil last week was a colourful but significant statement of intent of the way Fran Rooney wants to take the FAI. The return of Keane in his present incarnation - slow-burning, magisterial, distant and economical - for what is the first true game of the Kerr era would reflect glowingly and poignantly on Irish soccer. It would be genuinely wonderful.

Roy Keane is deliberate with words. The manner in which he forensically dissected every loose or unsatisfactory phrase during his endless interviews following his World Cup fall-out bears this out. "Take me back? Take me back?" has already entered the lexicon of Irish catch-phrases.

If he wanted to close the topic of his international retirement at Thursday's press conference in Dublin (for the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind) he would have done so resoundingly in four words or less. Instead he filled the room and consequently bar-rooms across the country with the hot air of ambivalence and possibility.

Entering that room the morning after Brazil had played at Lansdowne Road, Keane would have guessed he would field questions about playing for Ireland again. He would have had time to prepare his response. It is not inconceivable, in fact, he would have discussed his response with Alex Ferguson.

Keane chose to say he misses international football. Everything after that was cloaked. So it had to be. He could hardly be so blasé to just yawningly announce he would play again. Nor could a player of his stature and experience openly ask for the opportunity to be called back in. He cannot be sure if Kerr wants him or how the players would welcome his return. What his comments - a dreamy and vague departure from Keane's normally terse and exact speaking style - did was to leave people in no doubt there was still a chink of light left in the doorway. That should be enough.

It was striking just how serene and relaxed Keane was on Thursday. Watching him pose for the photographs and go through the series of television interviews with the faultless professional courtesy he has mastered over the years brought to mind some of the more daft comments that were made about the man in 2002.

Serious people who do not usually stoop to comment on matters as trivial as sport tripped over themselves to turn up at the usual mosh pits of the Sunday radio shows. It was as if they had stopped off at Eason's to pick up the Cliff Notes on Wuthering Heights to aid their earnest and cringe-inducing psychological analyses of someone they had never even met.

These same people predicted a dark and lonely future for Keane, one metaphorically spent howling on the moors of Yorkshire. I hope they remember what they said, and that they feel foolish now.

Because all that time was ever about was a man being driven to the point of distraction by a point of principle. He was always going to get over it and move on. And even though the resumption of his football career was further complicated by the deterioration of his hip, he dealt with all those obstacles.

So it was always patently clear to anyone with even the faintest understanding of sport that Keane would temper and tailor his game to his physiological needs to become a more confined and refined player. He is entering the truly imperious phase of his sporting life.

Roy Keane is not without flaws. He is impatient. By his own admission, he is moody. He is incessant in his public demands for unflagging standards at Manchester United. On Thursday, the very day he talked romantically of Ireland, he disdainfully commented on younger players at United having one good season and thinking they had made it. He is reminiscent of Michael Jordan, the very brightest and toughest and best of the lordly realm of sporting perfectionism that Keane inhabits, in his constant need to prod and cajole and rise all around him in order to better them. He is the standard-bearer and for that reason can come across as a pain in the ass.

But Keane has never given the Irish public any reason to believe he is anything other than honest. So unless we are to reason that he made Thursday's comments just to be mischievous and perverse, just to stir up a sleeping hornet's nest, then we must reason that there is substance behind them.

Although Kerr did not manage to qualify for Portugal this summer, he at least splashed some hope through Irish soccer in his first few games. Perhaps the flat failure in Switzerland was a secret blessing. Euro 2004 was never his campaign; it was always tainted. The sooner it was left behind, the better. Now Kerr has the clean slate he needs.

Sport always has room for great comebacks. DJ came back. Michael Jordan came back. Ali came back. Nicklaus stepped back in time for one glorious April weekend in 1986. Why not Roy Keane?

You look across at the hand that Kerr has been dealt and it seems bright enough in places but vulnerable. Some kids glittering with potential, a few earnest and shrewd journeymen winding down and a bunch in the midst of very respectable but unremarkable Premiership careers. Together, they may achieve some good results or they may suffer some awful disappointments. Their future is tough to predict.

But who can say it wouldn't seem much more secure with Keane involved once again? Aside from his well-documented gifts as a footballer, Keane shines with a steadfast faith and integrity that has altered the course of Irish international matches in the past and can do so again. He is a giant of contemporary soccer, the type of figure that comes along perhaps once every 40 years. And he has about three years of greatness left.

Brendan Behan said something to the effect that while most countries have a national identity, Ireland has a national psychosis. The circumstance of Roy Keane's retirement was the proof of that. But that was then. The past doesn't matter. If we could see Keane once again in the green he has worn like no other, ablaze with fresh intent and a father figure to Kerr's homespun generation, then all that tired madness might just have been worth it.