Former Ipswich Town goalkeeper Brian Murphy has given an incredible insight into what exactly it was like to work under Irish manager Roy Keane.
Keane oversaw the Championship club back in 2010 and brought Murphy in from Bohemians during his reign.
Speaking at the Gaultier GAA 'Resilience Forum', the Irish shot-stopper explained he only has positive memories of working under the Corkman.
"People have an opinion of Roy, I have a lot of time for the man. From the chats you have with him as a player or a coach, he ultimately persuaded me to go back over."
However, it wasn't such an enjoyable experience for all Irish players at the club with one, in particular, coming in for some harsh treatment.
I used to feel for Damien Delaney at times.
He used to hate Damo for whatever reason. Damo was a bit flash, he used to wear the baseball cap on backward and the American football jersey and they are from across the river from each other in Cork. After a game, if Damo made a mistake, Roy would be the first one to go for him and would absolutely hammer him. He would destroy him.
Murphy also explained that Keane's reputation for spiky temperament was well-placed. The entire team got to experience it after they draw a game against Leicester and the Irishman arrived in for his post-match team talk.
"The drug testers were in. As anyone who has been drug tested in sport knows, once the drug-tester introduces himself to you, they have to stay with you or you have to be in their sight the whole period of time until you finish giving your sample.
"Roy is doing his team-talk and going around to a couple of lads and, rightly or wrongly, he was talking to one lad from London who was nineteen and said 'look, I don't think you are going to make it in the game. I don't see you being consistent enough, you will probably be back in London next year doing drive-by shootings with your friends'.
"We are all sitting there, 'Holy God'."
Roy went on 'one week I look at you and you're controlling the game, the next week I can't find you on the pitch, but it's OK because I don't blame you. I blame your parents for the way they brought you up.'
It depends how the lad takes it but everyone is different. The last lad he went, 'do you want to be a footballer, or do you want to collect piss for a living like that fella?' And all you see is the drug tester in the corner and the poor fella didn't know what was going on.
"But that was Roy. he's so honest. He would rarely scream and shout at you, he was always talking to you and that always made it a bit more personal."
