McCarthy stands firm as Ireland's spirit bounces back

It should have been one of the most exciting periods of Mick McCarthy's career, preparing his national team for football's greatest event. Instead, the Republic of Ireland manager said yesterday that, because of the whole Roy Keane saga, the past week has been "the worst of my life". At its lowest point, he briefly considered whether it was worth continuing in the job beyond the World Cup finals.

Even with an unusual form of battle fatigue setting in, and public support for Keane still running at an unaccountably high level back in Ireland, McCarthy's self-belief quickly reasserted itself. "What I've done is played for my country as well as I could and managed as best I could and I think I've done a damn good job of it on both counts," he said. "Certain things have cropped up and I've considered all sorts of things over the last 24 hours, but the upshot is I don't think I have any need to walk away from this."

He was immediately supported by Brendan Menton, the general secretary of the Football Association of Ireland, who said: "The last few days have brought Mick McCarthy and the FAI closer together and we hope he'll be manager for many years to come."

McCarthy, who took the job in 1996 and signed a new two-year extension to his contract in February, should paste that quote in his scrapbook, just in case there are some fainter hearts in the association that would quake if results went badly over the next fortnight.

On Tuesday evening, the manager had been prevented by Menton from dwelling on the case of the missing captain. Now that Keane had finally ended all hope of returning to Japan, by declining to offer a proper apology for his behaviour after a formula had been agreed with the FAI, McCarthy was allowed to make one or two points he had been keen to emphasise 24 hours earlier. "That is now his decision," he said of the absence from the finals of Ireland's best player, adding: "There's been a lot of people spinning stuff and trying to discredit me. I can't affect the way people have supported either party. But I do think to be able to walk into a television studio and do a one-on-one interview giving your opinion of what happened [as Keane did] is a lot easier than facing a media conference when people are on the hunt."

Niall Quinn, who had emerged as one of the key figures trying to effect a reconciliation, revealed earlier that he and Steve Staunton were "drained and shattered" by the week's dramas and McCarthy agreed. "I'd defy anyone to be in the position I've been in and not feel drained, tired and exhausted from time to time, and still have to come out here and motivate players when you get up in the morning and the first person that needs motivating is you. But we've still managed to do that and maintain the team spirit and everything that we've stood for in six years I've been in charge."

There was indisputably a jaunty air to yesterday's training session, in which Kevin Kilbane, who was injured in last Saturday's friendly match here, played a full part. Jason McAteer, having feared that his World Cup might be over four days ago, was jogging and kicking footballs (mainly, Gascoigne-style, at cameramen) and is in contention to play against Cameroon on Saturday in the first match of the tournament to be staged in Japan. Only Charlton's Mark Kinsella, who is inked in to replace Keane in midfield, did not train, which McCarthy insisted was no cause for alarm: "He's just resting his knee, which he had an operation on earlier this year."

The manager believes that footballers have a great capacity to shake off emotional toils and troubles once they pull their boots on, and he must hope that is the case on Saturday. Less realistically, the FAI is still hoping that it might be allowed by Fifa to replace Keane in their squad with another player, Celtic's Colin Healy. It is chutzpah of the highest order, bringing to mind the young man who shoots both his parents and then demands sympathy as an orphan.