Here we are. Together again. Mick McCarthy sits down for business. His shirt is white and his face is closed. The media whizzes drop the microphones and dictation machines onto the table in front of him.

For 20 seconds you can hear the tape wheels whirring in the silence as Mick McCarthy looks at the media and the media look at Mick McCarthy. Ho hum.

On every lap is a three-page press release from the FAI which includes the details of the Irish squad for the new term which begins next Saturday in Lansdowne Road. The stark fact of this business is that apart from the crocks, Alan, David and Gary Kelly, and the unsolidified claims of Gareth Farrelly, Rory Delap and Alan Moore, the list amounts to just about everything available in terms of senior talent. All else is viewpoint.

So no thaw. Nothing new. McCarthy had expected sub-zero conditions. Had told you before it all started.

The Irish manager lives in the footballing version of that place between the rock and the hard place. Being successor to the most beloved and most lucky Irish manager in history was always going to be painful. Having Brian Kerr metamorphose into King Midas during your term might also be a little uncomfortable.

When he didn't go to watch the European Under-16 final in Scotland last May he felt the swooshing of the first cudgels cutting the air behind his ears. Felt it, resented it, was baffled by it.

"I just don't accept it. This business of having a go at me because I didn't go to the Under-16 final. Was Cesare Maldini up there? Glenn Hoddle? Do they bother at all? It's a strange thing about us in Ireland. I'm not excusing myself on the issue because I don't need to but it was one of those things, something else to beat me with. Stupid.

"What disappoints me is that they can't just say `well done Brian, isn't it great that we're winning these things'. There is always an agenda. It must be embarrassing for Brian. I don't think he's ever said he wants my job but every time he wins something he's allegedly after my job. Every win coincides with not just a celebration but `let's have a go at the senior manager as well'. "

The whole business is a symptom of lean times and treacherous geography. Kerr couldn't be more unlike McCarthy in some respects. Kerr likes the media, enjoys the endless game of shuttleboard and banter. Brian Kerr you meet on the street, you see at windswept games in Fairview Park. Mick McCarthy out of sight and nursing the national team through painful transition is an easy target. He doesn't see it as philosophically as that of course.

"I find it astounding. Unnecessary. Why can't we accept that the kids are doing very well. Brian is doing brilliantly. Why can't people accept that without using it as a stick to beat me with. But having a go is normal procedure by now.

"There is no problem with Brian and I. I would say the relationship between under-16s, under-18s and the national team is probably better here than anywhere else. When we can, we are in the same hotel, we sit down and eat together, If they are playing, our lads will go down and watch them. Does any country treat their underage players with as much respect and dignity as we do. "We are genuinely interested. Every senior player I talk to is thrilled. We're on the phone to each other. Jason McAteer, Phil Babb . . . everyone I talk to. All thrilled with the results. All interested. We are all genuinely pleased. We talk about it. Brian's achievements and the kids' achievements."

Of course, in the shadows of it walks the ghost of Jack Charlton. Charlton will stalk the nation's footballing consciousness until we have another homecoming to compare with the grand days he gave us. The real crime against underage football was the mothballing of Liam Tuohy, Brian Kerr and Noel O'Reilly back before the Big Jack bandwagon even got rolling.

Most of us never expended a second thought on the matter until underage football suddenly became central to the meaning of our lives. McCarthy noticed the blue-skied silence. Noticed it darken with arrows.

"Nobody said a word to Jack because you were all scared shitless of him. Nobody, except probably one journalist, had a go. Jack didn't get stick. He was so successful nobody could give him stick. Over the last two years it's all turned about. The senior team has had a bit of a decline and the youngsters have come out and people are giving Jack grief in hindsight for not dealing with the youth teams and undermining Liam and dropping Brian.

"There's no question in my mind that if I started turning up at these things it would look wrong to some people. Certain people would use it. I had a commitment on the day of the Under-16 final (an event for the blind). I wasn't going to change it. If I had gone it would have been `ah I see you turned up then. What are you doing here exactly'. I can't win."

So the life rolls on. The future knocking on his window every morning when he opens his eyes. The European Championship Group Eight has an Everest-like aspect to it but at base camp all heights look possible.

"It feels fresh," he says. "I look down the squad. Cas and Ray are in the squad but apart from that it's a fairly youthful squad. That had to be done. We had to change over. That two-year period was always going to be difficult and traumatic at times for me and some of the players. We have got through it though."

The sense of renewal is as tangible in his voice as it is in the smell of new-mown grass on the opening day of a season. He has been busy scuttling around from English ground to English ground keeping tabs on his boys.

He likes what he has seen. Keith O'Neill back and healthy, no longer a left winger but an apprentice striker under the tutelage of Bruce Rioch and Bryan Hamilton at Norwich. Ian Harte playing outstandingly at left back for Leeds. Roy Keane back in one piece. Niall Quinn in one piece some weeks.

Of the old guard who were settling down to decrepitude when Jack Charlton shuffled off, Andy Townsend is the most viable retiree on the shelf. His move to the exit won't be marked by the same controversy that attended the departures of Paul McGrath, John Aldridge and a couple of others.

Townsend's retirement came as no surprise. The player had come to McCarthy early in the World Cup campaign and offered to stand down from the captaincy. The conversation signposted the direction of Townsend's thinking.

"It seemed in his mind that he was thinking of packing it in. He got a lot of stick at one stage for his performances. I thought that was unfair. His performances were so good for so long. Out of respect for Andy I didn't want him to be remembered as one of those players who just stayed around too long.

"He was annoyed at the grief he had been getting. He never chose not to turn up, he played even when he was injured. He felt a little bitter about that. If I am stretched, I know, well I like to think, that Andy would come. I would have no hesitation ringing him up."

He reckons he has about 30 viable players now. All of them have caps. The days of throwing kids into occasions they should be watching on television is over. He figures on having cover now in most positions, including suddenly centre forward. Robbie Keane and Keith O'Neill are learning the art of playing there. David Connolly is back playing football.

"It has been slow but it has all been part of our learning process. Most of it was working except for the obvious fact that we didn't qualify. The squad which comes in here though could all go on and play in the European Championship and still be involved in the one after that and possibly the one after that.

And of the business looming next Saturday he is unusually upbeat. Having three tricky eastern European jaunts in the schedule is daunting enough. Two of them being to Croatia and Yugoslavia seems quite rough.

"I fancy us against Croatia," he says. "I really do. They've come after a good World Cup. Will they have the swagger. I hear Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson saying the players in their teams are physically down. Well, this is a team of them. They have been together a long time, strong team, excellent players, but we are at home. We want to get back on that bandwagon. We have more to fight for."

After that a point nicked in Belgrade against Yugoslavia would raise the stakes significantly. That's the optimist's view of course.

If it all went badly - or, as he might put it, pear-shaped - would he be tempted to say goodbye and jump on the first train which came past?

"I wouldn't walk away from it. That's just not something I would do. In the summer, I was lying on a rock on a beach in Donegal with the sun shining and I read in the paper that I was under fire, under pressure. I laughed. If this is under pressure give me more. I have enjoyed the job and I'll enjoy it even more.

"I know they have it lined up. Some people have the stories written already. I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking of getting a win against Croatia.

"Two years into the job I realise that's the way it is. Somebody asks me a daft question, okay I snap at them, but I am what I am. I know what's happening. I'm resigned to that. I've done my best and I've always done my best. If in the end it's good enough they're not going to be my buddies anyway. If it's not good enough and we don't qualify. I know, I know. I'll just go swim with the dolphins."

And by now the room is filling with press conference folk. Circling fins and not a joyous dolphin in sight.