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He was one of Kerr's boys. He had worked with him at underage level, most memorably in Cyprus, and he remembers thinking when Mick McCarthy left, that Kerr was the man. "The likes of myself, Damien and Robbie thought he'd be well able for it," he says, sitting in an office at Manchester City's Carrington training ground.
"His preparation for it and everything was perfect, every game we knew what to expect. But the longer it went on and the results weren't going right and we hadn't qualified for anything and the pressure started to come, it started to get a little bit different."
Dunne's relationship with his former manager took many turns. It puzzles him now, the behaviour at times when injuries were draining him anyway and the manager appeared not to be supportive.
Before Ireland's game in Basle in 2003, Dunne, who had been left out of the squad, travelled to Crewe with the Manchester City physio for an injection. With an international break, the club had decided that Dunne would get an injection in his ankle, an injury which would bother him for some time.
On the way to the hospital, he received a call from Kerr. Could he travel to Switzerland? Postpone the injection the manager said. Dunne told him he was outside the hospital and he needed the shot. Kerr asked to speak to the physio who was travelling with Dunne. "The physio asked him was I going to play and he said 'No, I don't know, probably on the bench'. And the physio said he wasn't sending me to Switzerland to sit on the bench. So I had it done then and that was it, I didn't get back in the squad for a while."
OVER the next two summers, he had a series of tense conversations with Kerr. "When I had injuries and stuff I just felt that he didn't think I had injuries. When I was having operations and he told me once I didn't need one, over the phone, without seeing me, that was a bit off-putting.
"I had a double hernia operation and didn't go to the Unity Cup. I needed an operation and I either had it then, and miss that, or have it after and miss the start of the season. I wasn't going to do that. It would have been completely different if it was a World Cup but it was a friendly tournament down in Charlton. It was something I felt I had to do and I did it and I was told I wouldn't get back in the squad unless I was in the team at City."
The frustration came because Dunne was desperate to play for Ireland. "You don't just go and have an operation because you don't want to play for your country, it's stupid. It doesn't happen like that. It's really not my choice to be honest. If the club tell me that I have to be back for pre-season on a certain date and I have to be fit for it, then I have to do what's right for that. If it had been the World Cup, the club would have pushed me out onto the pitch."
Last summer, he thought he'd reached the end of the road with Kerr. He needed operations in both ankles and, despite the fact they were chasing a European place, City told him to miss the last three games of the club season and be ready for the start of the new one. Ireland had games against Israel and the Faroe Islands to come and the player and his international manager disagreed on a plan for the player.
"Again Brian didn't think it was right. I had to have both my ankles done and he said I could get one done, play a few games and get the other one done, but that would have defeated the purpose. I told him what I had to do and he said he'd ring me back, but he never did."
Kerr never called but when the autumn came, Dunne was the starting centre-back for the crucial World Cup games, played in an atmosphere he had never experienced before as a footballer.
"Our relationship was grand at that stage, we never spoke about the games I didn't show up for, it was just forgotten about. The aim was getting to the World Cup and it wasn't anything personal between anybody. I wanted to do my best for Brian and Brian wanted me to do my best - we could have got to the World Cup together, but unfortunately it didn't work out."
But the pressure was intense and Kerr could find no release for the players. "When it becomes pressurised you want, when you get the chance, to step away from it a little bit, but under Brian the pressure seemed to be kept on because it was work all day and videos at night." Dunne recently said that the video sessions had become "a pain in the arse", but he feels the intense media spotlight added to the lack of enjoyment within the squad. It began, he believes, in Saipan and has continued since then.
"That was probably one of the most high profile things that's ever happened at a World Cup and the biggest scandal and, not slagging our press off, but it was great for them that the biggest story of the World Cup was from Ireland and they were on the inside of it. I think from then the pleasure of writing these stories became greater and they tried to dig deeper."
By the end, with Kerr, the burden seemed too much. "The intensity from the outside had risen a lot which put pressure on the manager to get results and players to perform. While it was a great honour to play for your country, it wasn't that enjoyable. It was a hard, intense pressure all the time."
Most of the players, he says, were unused to it. "Over here I suppose it's only the likes of Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal who get a lot of stick, whereas a lot of us weren't used to it. It wasn't nice. I don't know whether it was pressure or just bad will at times. It didn't feel like people were 100 per cent behind us."
With strong feelings of doubt and a management set-up that did little to relax the players, the squad simmered and twitched. Kerr, he says, had changed a little from his time as underage boss. "He still tried to be himself. He had Chris Hughton doing most of the training and Brian has always been great with his speeches before games. That was still there."
Hughton's training was excellent, he says, but the same as they had with their clubs. The Irish players expected something different when they went to Dublin. Kerr wanted to match the professionalism of the clubs. "I think Brian worried about everything, right the way through, to make sure everything was perfect. I mean sometimes you need things to go wrong, that's the way Ireland is, it makes for a bit of crack, everybody has a laugh. When everything is perfect, you've got five days just to concentrate on football."
His idea that the serial calamities of Irish football are an essential part of team bonding might appal Roy Keane and Kerr, but Dunne - and other members of the Irish squad - all knew that something was missing. If it could be restored just by taking it easy, all the better.
Kerr couldn't do that, Dunne says, and they knew he was struggling in his relationship with the press. "It's not like we'd turn up for a game and go, 'Oh, he looks like he's cracking'. He was still himself, still seemed perfectly fine. I think he put a lot of pressure on himself because the job meant so much to him and he was so desperate to qualify. There is a time to put pressure on yourself and make sure you are doing things right, but sometimes there is a need to relax and have a nice evening in with your family - and let the lads relax at the hotel."
They relaxed before Staunton's first match and they relaxed on the pitch too, Staunton telling them to play simple, easy football, not burdening them with instructions. He knows it will be different in Stuttgart in September. That will be a proper test, but so far the players are happy. The training is different, they enjoy themselves with Kevin MacDonald and with Mick Byrne's return, laughter bounces down the hotel corridor.
He can recall, too, his first squad session with Ireland's new captain when they were playing for the Irish U-15s. Robbie Keane, he says, hasn't changed a bit. "He's always been a livewire, a joker, but he's always been the one to step it up in training. He's the most popular player in the squad and everyone's delighted for him and his family, they're so proud of him."
