[caption id="attachment_66911" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="President Roy Keane? Anyone?"]
As part of his ongoing quest to improve his store of coaching knowledge, Roy Keane asked the Warrington Wolves rugby league team if they'd mind letting him into their club for a few days last month. With an eye on perhaps picking up some clues ahead of next managerial role, he wanted to observe how they went about the business of preparing for games. The Wolves were only too happy to have him around, even more so when he offered to give a talk to the players.
"He's a sporting icon and we were all blown away by his honesty and the escapades that he was willing to share with us," said Wolves' head of coaching Tony Smith. "It was a great insight into the man. He's a terrific man. I've got a lot of time for him and it was a privilege to have someone like him come and talk to us."
Smith wasn't exaggerating about the effect Keane's speech had on the squad. Next time out, they put up sixty points against Wakefield Wildcats. Aside from being nice to see Keane's reputation for greatness remains intact, at least in some corners of the English Northwest, this yarn provided a nice counterpoint to a few other stories doing the rounds about the Corkman.
First, he was linked with a move down under to manage the Melbourne Victory, the sort of appointment that would surely spell the end of his career at the serious end of the English game. Then, there was apparently serious talk of the 40-year-old taking over Iceland, hardly a glamour gig. Even that paled next to a Sunday newspaper flyer that he was the man to succeed Giovanni Trapattoni (imagine what he'd think of the FAI Chief Executive leading pub sing-songs the night before matches!) as Irish boss.
All of the above ignored the obvious. There is a job going spare that Keane is perfectly suited for. It's garnered thousands of column inches in the past few months yet from what we can see, his name hasn't even been put in the frame. How did his fellow Corkman Michael Martin opt to take a chance on persuading Gay Byrne to consider the Phoenix Park when he knows Keane is out of work and available and far more suited to the role of leading the country? He's done more charity work than some of those in the race, has never campaigned on behalf of a pedophile (as David Norris has), and has certainly inspired far more Irish people than Michael D. Higgins and his bad poetry ever did.
Imagine Keane as president of Ireland. The office would finally matter. Why? Because he'd make it matter. Picture the scene when he turns up to cut the ribbon at the opening of a new road and throws away the anodyne speech prepared by some civil servant. "How much over the budget did you go on this project?" Keane would ask. "Who was responsible for that? What kind of sloppy carry-on are you involved in here? Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail." The local councilors would be choking on their canapés and retreating for cover. No bad thing.
The benefits in terms of international diplomacy would be obvious too. For the first time in our history as an independent nation, the foreign dignitaries arriving would actually know who the president of Ireland was. They wouldn't have to scan through pages of prepared briefs as the plane touched down in Dublin airport. They'd just be told that it's Keane, you know, the guy who used to captain Manchester United. "Ah Monsieur Keane. Formidable. Incroyable!" They wouldn't even have to feign respect for his office. They'd be quivering in case he started to berate them for being late or throwing shapes on the tarmac. Every ambassador and president in the world has seen what he did to Vieira on YouTube.
There'd be fun and games at home too. Every piece of legislation that is passed by the Dail must be signed into law by the president. What happens when Keane doesn't like the look of a piece of legislation? Do you think he'd have any qualms about prompting a constitutional crisis by refusing to sign it? After all, this is the man who had the gumption to ignore Tommie Gorman's cringe-worthy attempt to get him to think of the children back in 2002. He'd have no problem telling a taoiseach the legislation wasn't up to scratch.
Then there's the little matter of him being the commander-in-chief of the Irish armed forces. Ahem, who wouldn't love to see that? Who better to carry out impromptu inspections of unkempt barracks? Who is more qualified to tell soldiers to shape up or ship out? And just in case we were invaded during his time in office, would you really want anybody else but Keane in charge of the small but dedicated band of brothers and sisters we will be calling on to defend this island? Yes, yes, we know some idiots out there will say he was a traitor in 2002 but you can't help those people.
Arguably the best part of all is Keane wouldn't come out with any "I'm lighting candles in the window for the diaspora" patronizing guff like Mary Robinson did back in the day. He'd be much more likely to point out that emigrants made their decision and deserve everything they get. He's not big on empathy or sympathy (remember his reaction to the Thierry Henry thing in 2009) when things go wrong. And that's fine too. We need tough love in Ireland right now. No better buachaill for that.
If all of the above doesn't convince the electorate he's the man for the job, how about the prospect of Keane
being introduced to teams before
internationals at the Aviva Stadium? His intimidating presence back
on the field would be worth at
least a couple of tries for the rugby crowd, and a goal or two for the soccer outfit. Now, that would be truly presidential.
