Saipan - 20 Years On

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Originally Posted by SkStu

I'm doing grand, thanks. I'm just not sure what your argument is and i have tried to refute them all as i see them in #273 but you keep moving the goalposts. They could have gone to Bangkok instead is your latest position. OK - they could have. They'd still have another flight and jetlag to deal with which was your opening gambit (complete nonsense by the way)... but Roy and Mick would never have fallen out there, I suppose...

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The Bangkok "suggestion" I would have thought was obvious sarcasm given the massage part!

At no point did I ever say Keane and McCarthy wouldnt have fallen out somewhere else, in fact I clearly said in my initial post on this that "Whatever about who is right or wrong between Roy and Mick, the choice of Saipan was weird".

The Genesis Report agrees with my opinion that Saipan was a disaster. Would it have been as difficult to get the required equipment to a place less isolated and difficult to get to?

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/fai-...eport-1.445930
"It highlights the absence of training gear, footballs, isotonic drinks and medical equipment in Saipan and describes the Republic's preparations as under-resourced in comparison to the build-up of other nations"


But I suppose at the end of the day we are only little old Ireland and we'll just go on the pi$$ and sing rebel songs wherever we are.

Okie doke. We’ll leave it there so, Eamonn.

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Originally Posted by SkStu

Okie doke. We’ll leave it there so, Eamonn.

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Alright. It was a good debate, not a great debate Bill!

None of those criticisms relate to Saipan itself though.

The FAI could easily have made a similar balls up of it anywhere in the world. That's not Saipan's fault

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

None of those criticisms relate to Saipan itself though.

The FAI could easily have made a similar balls up of it anywhere in the world. That's not Saipan's fault

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Ok, last thing Im saying on it.... Saipan was the main issue. The reason those things were not there was because of the logistical difficulty of getting to Saipan. Its an isolated small Island in the middle of nowhere and didnt have any facilities on the Island itself or a huge amount of transport in and out of it. Try book a flight there yourself even today and you'll do well to get there in under 3 transfers

Plenty of two-transfer options on skyscanner. Dublin - London - Hong Kong - Saipan is one of the easier ones. Dublin - Doha (or Abu Dhabi) - Incheon - Saipan is an option too. And that's for people; DHL are a worldwide company who specialise in stuff like this.

Ah thats where they went wrong so.... They used An Post rather than DHL, mystery solved!

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Originally Posted by texidub

We played pretty well at that WC without Keane so staying in Saipan didn't do that much harm to the rest of the squad, in fairness - even if the lack of facilities there sounds crazy unprofessional.

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Excellent point.

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Originally Posted by Razors left peg

Ah thats where they went wrong so.... They used An Post rather than DHL, mystery solved!

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Did they use An Post?

That sounds silly if they did. And definitely the FAI's fault, not Saipan's.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Did they use An Post?

That sounds silly if they did. And definitely the FAI's fault, not Saipan's.

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Sweet Jebus ;)

It's really hard to know what your gripe is tbh.

It's hard to get to - at least three transfers! No it's not; there's a straightforward route.

It's far from Japan - no it's not.

Why not go to Australia or South Africa? Because they are far from Japan.

There was a one-day delay in getting footballs there - that's the island's fault how?

You're not really putting a great case across here.

Roy Keane should have left his bad mood at home.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Did they use An Post?

That sounds silly if they did. And definitely the FAI's fault, not Saipan's.

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Was part of Genesis I think.
An Post & their failings to get the balls onto the right island.

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Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

Was part of Genesis I think.
An Post & their failings to get the balls onto the right island.

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On page 34, Section 12 of the Genesis report I believe the exact quote was "The FAI took no learnings from An Post previous losses of Shergar and Lord Lucan. If this information was not Airgapped by senior leadership Saipan would have had more footballs than people on the Island"

Pretty damning to be fair!

Oh yeah, McAteer also said he never called him an ‘English c**t’

Also, McCarthy said he asked him to come back and he said no

So this is what it is like on the Ireland National Team side of the house. I wouldn’t even have known about this thread it if it wasn’t for the “Future of foot.ie” thread. See it is working already in spreading the gospel of the foot. Amen brothers!

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Originally Posted by SkStu

Look, if I have to spell out everything to the minute detail in terms of what some of the shorthand (like training camp) means, we'll be here all day. You know what I mean. There were no drills, no cardio stuff, etc - none of the stuff you would see when they actually got to the camp. It was about team bonding, morale, relaxation and recuperation primarily and significantly. If you want to dispute that then say so directly.

A big issue... for Keane. Pretty much everyone else more or less - even if it wasn't perfect - understood what they were there for and got on with things as best they could.

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I have some sympathy for McCarthy but ultimately the management and the FAI were responsible for the whole Saipan debacle.

And there's no point in saying it was a big issue for Keane and pretty much no one else. He was our best and most important player for a reason, and managers have to adapt their approach to particular players.

Maybe it's my own personal antipathy towards Keane showing, but re the facilities etc, wasn't this a case of being right in what you say, but not being right to say it?

That is, someone might* have screwed up in selecting Saipan, but surely that's for the post-mortems? And in the meantime you just have to get on with it, especially if you're the Captain, who should be fostering squad harmony, not sabotaging it. Always seemed liked a (typical) lack of true leadership on Keane's part to me.


* - I said "someone" since it may not all have been Mick's doing, and "might", since it depends on what Mick wanted to get out of it. In which case Keane might just have had a quiet word with him beforehand. That's if Keane has ever had a quiet word with anyone. :wink:

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Originally Posted by EalingGreen

Maybe it's my own personal antipathy towards Keane showing, but re the facilities etc, wasn't this a case of being right in what you say, but not being right to say it?

That is, someone might* have screwed up in selecting Saipan, but surely that's for the post-mortems? And in the meantime you just have to get on with it, especially if you're the Captain, who should be fostering squad harmony, not sabotaging it. Always seemed liked a (typical) lack of true leadership on Keane's part to me.


* - I said "someone" since it may not all have been Mick's doing, and "might", since it depends on what Mick wanted to get out of it. In which case Keane might just have had a quiet word with him beforehand. That's if Keane has ever had a quiet word with anyone. :wink:

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Keane = Captain Complainer.

Basically, Keane shouldn’t have vented his frustration to a journalist. That was never going to end well