Three and a half years ago in Poland, Roy Keane sat in the ITV studio and told Adrian Chiles that both players and supporters needed to change their mentality.
He refused to indulge in platitudinous praise for the Irish supporters.
I think the players, and even the supporters, need to change their mentality... I'm not too happy with that nonsense. Praise the supporters for the sake of it? Let's change that attitude to Irish supporters. They want to see the team winning as well. Listen, they want to see the team winning as well. Let's not kid ourselves. We're a small country and we're up against it. But let's not just go along for the sing-song every now and again.
Four years on, Keane will be rather closer to the action. He'll be seated beside Martin O'Neill in the dugout rather than Adrian Chiles. But he is still opposed to the idea of heading to France purely for the purposes of relishing the sing song.
We don't want to have that mentality going over there that, 'it's great, let's have a sing-song'. We'll need all our leaders in France. Listen, the Irish fans want to see us do well and win football matches which will possibly be difficult because of the seedings.
There's sure to be a few fans who'll have a bit of a problem with Keane's long held views on that. Sure, the players aren't going to France for a sing-song but (and allow us to play devil's advocate here) is there really that much of a problem if the fans enjoy themselves regardless of the result?
