You may recall that, back in November, Roy Keane found himself in danger of 'wading into' a 'club versus country row'.
Keane of course had pretty much single-handedly instigated the row, accusing Ronald Koeman and Everton of "massively overloading" James McCarthy ahead of Ireland's victory in Austria.
Koeman responded in kind, claiming McCarthy was unable to train after returning from Vienna, which was 'not good for Everton or Ireland'.
Keane has had a couple of pops at Everton during his Champions League punditry in the months since, but it would appear he bears no personal gripe with the blue side of Liverpool, and instead has a bone to pick with most of his Ireland players' clubs in England.
Speaking at a fundraiser for his former club Cobh Ramblers at Cork's Clayton Silver Springs Hotel last night, Keane admitted he takes very little heed of clubs' fitness updates on Ireland players.
We know we’ve got a small pool of players and we can’t lose sleep if lads show up and they haven’t played for a month or two. We just have to get on with it.
Fitness coaches do like to talk a lot, ‘Well he’s played two minutes in two years, blah, blah, blah’. We have to say: ‘Listen, you be quiet.’
What we find with the Irish lads, even though they mightn’t be pulling up any trees at club level, when they’re playing for Ireland, they seem to rise to the challenge. Martin gets them to play at that higher level, even though they mightn’t have been playing for the previous few months.
A lot can happen in the next week or two. We get a lot of messages from the medical staff about players who are carrying knocks or coming back from injury. I don’t know why they even send the emails because I very rarely read them.
The image of Keane tentatively approaching his email inbox with a furrowed brow is a real treat, but one player whose fitness is rarely a concern - even during an injury-plagued season - is Jon Walters.
Keane told the 700-strong Silver Springs audience that the Stoke City forward is borderline maniacal when it comes to his personal fitness, and that missing a few months' action would do little to hamper his performance for Ireland if he's called upon on Saturday week.
Jon is a big player for us, a big personality. I was down at Stoke the previous weekend and he was sub, but he did more in the warm-up than some players did when the game was on. He’s a great attitude and a fitness freak.
Jon hasn’t played much football but I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep about Jon tuning up and not having played for a few months. You know for that week with Ireland, he’s different class. You want people like Jon in the trenches with you.
[Quotes transcribed by Stephen Barry, Irish Examiner]
To read more of Keane's appearance at last night's Cobh Ramblers fundraiser at Silver Springs, including his thoughts on Gareth Bale vs Séamus Coleman in a fortnight's time, head to the Examiner.
