“People were in fear of Roy” – Damien Duff says some Ireland players were able to “breathe” after Keane left in 2002

"People were in fear of Roy. Not me, not Robbie, he looked after us, we were young, we were fearless."

It may have happened 16 years ago, but the incident on Saipan between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy continues to be discussed. Keane, Ireland’s captain and best player, was sent home before the 2002 World Cup – or walked away, depending on who tells the story – after a heated dispute with McCarthy and the country was split down the middle. The Republic of Ireland team recovered from losing the midfielder to get out of a tricky group and lose on penalties to Spain in the last-16. Ireland have since failed to get back to football’s biggest stage, and the sense of ‘what if’ from that tournament persists for football fans in the country. Keane helped drag Ireland to the World Cup, so who knows where they could have finished with him in the side. https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1004396513102057474 However, Damien Duff, a key member of the 2002 team, isn’t sure that Keane’s presence would have automatically resulted in Ireland advancing past Spain and deeper into the competition. Duff said that he and Robbie Keane were "looked after" by the Ireland captain and that they weren't fazed by his hard-line approach. However, the former Chelsea and Blackburn Rovers winger also claimed that Keane’s exit may have helped some players in the squad perform to a higher standard, as "people were in fear of Roy." "From my point of view, he would have helped us go further in the tournament," Duff said on Wednesday, as RTE launched their coverage of the 2018 World Cup.

“You could argue he was the best midfielder in the world at the time. (He was) a massive influence in the dressing room. But again, ‘what ifs,’ who knows? The Spain team weren’t one of the great teams, we dominated them, went out on penalties. Looking at it from another point of view, Roy dominates dressing rooms. People were in fear of Roy - not me, not Robbie, he looked after us, we were young, we were fearless. But even at Man United, people were in fear of him, maybe in a way, when he left, it let lads breathe. "So, we’ll never know. Yeah, (he was) unbelievable, he could have driven us on to the final, but also other players that played well, might not have played as well because Roy was barking down their neck for 90 minutes.”

However, as Duff said, one can never know for sure how the team would have performed if Keane had remained.

"It’s all ‘what ifs’. It’s all people talk about is Saipan and Roy. If you’re selling a book, you have to do a chapter on that."

Keane returned to the Ireland team in 2004 under Brian Kerr, McCarthy's successor, and has been the team's assistant manager since 2013, working with Martin O'Neill.