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I know which of the two I'd believe - and it's not Quinn, who for all the "hale fellow, well met" appearance, always came across to me as a bit sneaky.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixer82
Then again, I may be being influenced by the fact that I like Morrison, clearly a decent sort.
The annoying thing with all of this is that Ireland had an excellent chance to progress in that tournament - going out on penalties to a Spanish team that only had ten men on the pitch and another who couldn't run - with Keane on the pitch in that game he would have driven the Irish players forward in search of a winning goal. Beat Spain and your up against a S. Korean team that was beatable and then Germany who Ireland had already drawn with in the group stage and were also beatable.
I think that what frustrated Keane more than the problems with the training facilities etc, was the attitude of some of the players who felt they had made the finals, were happy to be there and were relaxed about what was going on around them and McCarthy was happy to go along with it - where as Keane wanted a discipline and a plan to maximise the potential of the team. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if McCarthy got Keane onside by imposing the discipline that Keane thought was necessary, rather than imposing discipline on Keane for acting out.
Morrison is dead sound - a working class kid from a deprived background who had to scrap for everything and never lost the run of himself - and always helped people when he could.Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
I'll always agree with Mick's insistence that Saipan was meant to be relaxed for the squad at the end of a long season, unwind, build some morale - instead of the intense camp that Keane had wanted it to be. Now, there is a lot i'll agree with Keane on in terms of how the logistics were handled and generally wanting to see a winning mentality but that needs to be balanced. I think he misread the room massively and, likely, just didnt really want to be there and be away from his family and home comforts for such a long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Red Giant
Theres no doubt in my mind that if we had a more content Keano there, we'd have gone further. In retrospect, it seems like getting Keano in that headspace at that stage of his career would have been a herculean task for any manager.
Alex Ferguson wasn't long showing Roy Keane the door when push came to shove !
I think the intervening years have shown getting & keeping RMK onside is thankless and pointless spend of time. Doubtlessly things in Saipan weren't to his liking but was his handling of it proportional ? No. With everything that's been said of this, the one truth of it is the one thing that hasn't been said enough, the defining narrative, the pressure cooked him & he blew.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Red Giant
We could have had a tilt at a WC final with him, yes. We'd almost certainly have done better. But bottom line he went home & stayed there. Mick not blameless either in the fallout.
Oh, & the last movie I want to watch is one about that few weeks. It was pretty much downhill from there with the odd blip rally to where we find Irish football today & it could still get worse.
Whatever about who is right or wrong between Roy and Mick, the choice of Saipan for their "rest and relaxation" before the world cup is still weird and disgraceful. Im not sure people still even realize how far away Saipan is from Japan. It made no sense to go there, and even less given the lack of facilities there for a football team. It was another case of peoples pockets being lined.
This movie will be more depressing than Angelas Ashes
Which was actually mostly filmed in Cork because Limerick wasn't derelict enough but Cork had ample choices, location wise. Fun fact there unless someone from Limerick is pointing it out to someone from Cork, which I often have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Who gets to play Roy Keane's dog = = The best part in the whole episode.
I would have thought the distance from all the hype would have been part of the point of going to Saipan tbhQuote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
They could have stopped anywhere along the way to Japan, Saipan is so far out of the way it was ridiculousQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
It was actually Tom Humphries’ book ‘lap top dancing and nanny goats…’ something or other.Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
He said when writing Quinn’s book he mentioned it and Quinn said ‘yeah Roy never said that’.
Humphries published it on hearsay as time wasn’t on his side to go to print and get the story out.
Keane also says he asked Humphries to leave out the bit of him not respecting McCarthy and not to tell anyone after he said it, but he didn’t.
Great writer but questionable morals it must be said
The real movie I want to see is David Connolly’s handheld videocam footage on the island.
But it was intended so be well out of the way. And if was only a couple of hours' flight to Japan then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
I'm not seeing the big issue tbh?
The flight to Japan is long enough, why would you add another 4 or 5 hours to it? Saipan is in the middle of the Pacific, nowhere close to Japan, and had no facilities to accommodate a professional football team. I just got off an 11 hour flight on Monday, I wouldnt have appreciated another 1 hour let alone going off where they did.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Now there's an understatement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fixer82
It wasn’t a layover though so I’m not sure what the problem is in terms of flight length… they were there for about 10 days if I recall correctly to acclimatize prior to gearing up properly when they reached their main base in Japan. And looking at the location on a map, there’s no where that is practical as a pre-camp base in the vicinity - if you exclude SK and Japan themselves. In other words, if not Saipan then where is the obviously better choice? It just leaves the facilities there which, and I believe him on this, McCartthy said were of secondary importance and not the intent of the trip.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
They could have gone anywhere in Asia if they wanted to acclimatize, going off into the middle of the Pacific made no senseQuote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
I've never understood how a supposed professional team.pre world cup could spend 10 days somewhere where supposedly professional level facilities were not important. It's just nonsense , it wouldn't be tolerated now and was daft then.
They couldn't though. They couldn't have gone to a large city or somewhere at serious altitude or one of the more repressive regimes or somewhere significantly west of Japan (because of the risk of jetlag flying on)Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
As Stu says, it wasn't a layover; it was somewhere to get away from the media of the Premier League and the World Cup, to bind as a group before heading on to their base in Japan, which was excellent.
It's a weird choice for sure. But I'm not seeing what the issue is
What happens in Saipan should stay in Saipan !
Open a map, look at where Saipan is. If you still don't see the issue I have no further argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Did they have airplanes ? !Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Funnily enough they did... but no footballsQuote:
Originally Posted by seanfhear
Fly me to the moon !Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
I know where Saipan is. It's about a three-hour flight from Japan. You say they could have gone anywhere in Asia - but most of Asia is more than a three-hour flight from Japan.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
That seems your only objection - but I don't understand why it's an issue. Somewhere out of the way is, by its very nature, going to be a bit out of the way. But three and a bit hours is hardly excessive.
Sure they could have gone to Belmullet if they really wanted to be isolated !Quote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
The next world cup is in the US, let's see if any of the European teams playing in LA will have a build up camp in HawaiiQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
If not Saipan, then where was the obviously better choice? Japan and South Korea are fairly disconnected.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
How about any place that any other team prepping for that World Cup based themselves before the tournament. Somewhere that wasn't hours out of the way in the middle of the Pacific. If it didn't matter cos it was only a flight away, why not go to Australia? South Africa maybe, how about the Aran Islands... it was nonsense and we only ended up there because Ray Tracey got his pockets filledQuote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
It wasn't a build-up camp though. It was a break from the hectic Premier League season, and a chance to recharge ahead of a hectic World Cup campaign. The opposite of a build-up camp in a way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
Was it really necessary? Maybe not. But if it was decided that sort of break would be good, then I'm still not seeing any real issues with Saipan as a venue. It was only a short flight away, so your Australia/South Africa comparisons aren't valid (and South Africa to Tokyo would bring in jetlag too).
20 years hasnt changed anyones opinions on this so Im not going to keep going over and back trying to persuade anyone why Saipan was ridiculous. I am genuinely surprised though, I thought it had been well established by now that it was a disaster to go there and that everyone pretty much agreed on that. I was obviously wrong.
Saipan was a disaster but not for the reasons you are putting out there. It was a disaster because our Captain and Manager had a massive falling out based on relationship issues that went back to 1994 that Keane just couldn't let go of. It wasn't a disaster because of poor pitches (it wasn't a training camp). It wasn't a disaster because it was far from Japan/SK (any other alternative would be). It wasn't a disaster because someone got their pockets lined (that came out later). If Keane and McCarthy not had a bust up, we'd never have even heard of the place.
Somebody should have brought some joints for Roy Keane !
Not a training camp but they were training there and the lack of footballs and bad pitches were a big issue.... but ok!Quote:
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
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.
Put back on your knickers there Stuey before they get too twisted like a good lad. I fully understand what a training camp is, this was a training camp albeit a light one. Saying they were just there to relax and nothing else is plain nonsense. There was training involved, hence it was a training camp.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu
If they just wanted to relax they could have all spent the week in Bangkok getting "massaged". This was a professional football team preparing for a World Cup and yet you still all these years later think it was acceptable to bring them off to a place that was so logistically difficult to get to the footballs couldnt even find their way there.
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.
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...Quote:
Originally Posted by Razors left peg
You obviously don't know your WW2 ! I had heard of Saipan well before that. Site of one the biggest battles in the Pacific war with I think about 50K dead and about 100k wounded. Puts the McCarthy/Keane thing in the halfpenny place.Quote:
Originally Posted by SkStu