Not since CJ Haughey appeared on our screens and advised us to tighten our belts has an address to the nation been so feverishly anticipated, TV3 even delaying its Late Lunch Live Tuna Nicoise Salad segment to cover Roy Keane's first press conference as Republic of Ireland assistant manager.
Visitors to the country, you’d guess, might have said: “Wait. There is live coverage on your TV of your assistant – repeat: assistant – manager’s press conference ahead of a friendly against Latvia?” At which point we’d say, “Ssssh, you don’t understand.”
Alas, Roy had already kicked off when Late Lunch Live took to the air, Martin King's introduction along the lines of "Hello! Here's Roy!", TV3 oblivious to his habit of arriving mad early for appointments, the Irish squad now, possibly, sleeping on the Malahide training pitch overnight just to assure they're there when the assistant gaffer arrives for duty.
“Don’t be patting me on the back for that,” said Roy, “you expect that from anyone, to be on time for work – Jesus, not looking for miracles.”
That was TV3 told.
Over on Sky Sports News, Rob Wotton and Rachel Wyse – although, we could have the names entirely wrong, every SSN combo kinda looking like Ken and Barbie – were hyperventilating in anticipation of the address, with Tony Cascarino hired for the day to analyse the whole business.
Rusty pliers
"He's just entered the rooooooooom," howled Rob, and he had too, initially wearing the look of a man – Roy, not Rob – who'd rather be having his wisdom teeth extracted by a rusty pliers. But after 10ish seconds, all was good, and you couldn't help but think if TV3 had live Roy press conferences every day, their ratings would be Jupiter level. He's box office, this fella, like we didn't know that already.
Much channel-hopping was required, though, those sea sickness-inducing rising bubbles in the TV3 caption under Roy’s chin a little off-putting, necessitating an occasional flick-back to SSN.
But they cut Roy off in his prime, switching to Big Cas for his analysis. “Roy was in great form, that’s how I like to see him . . .” he said, pointing to his pupils, narrowing them sufficiently to look like the mother of all demons. “Hit or miss so far,” asked Rob. “A very big hit,” said Cas, and that was his day’s work done.
By then, of course, Roy had noted an absence of potholes and the presence of bibs at Irish training, concluding "major progress" had been made, while once again bringing the late Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu into an Irish footballing conversation.
Bad cop
Bad cop and bad, bad cop?
“I think it’s going to be the other way around, I’m going to have to be the good cop – you obviously don’t know Martin as well as you think you do, he makes me look like . . . Mother Teresa.”
Had he consulted with any of the players before taking the job? “Absolutely not, no, obviously none of their business, that’s a ridiculous question.” Grin. Would Martin tame him?
“There’s nothing to tame. I’m not some sort of an animal, you know what I mean? I’m a footballing man.”
Purr.
We were only warming up at this stage when TV3, too, cut away, redirecting us to their website, time for that Tuna Nicoise Salad recipe, a nation, as one, asking: “WHAT?!”
Especially the ones who'd set the whole shebang to record, so instead of Roy's response to a query on his thoughts about Alex Ferguson – "if (anyone)] tells lies about me, that's when I'll come out and defend myself . . . but that's for another day" – they got "six anchovy fillets cut lengthways into thin strips", etc.
As Roy once put it, “the only thing that goes with the flow are dead fish.” Tuna, in this case. RIP.
