Roy Keane yesterday lined up unhesitatingly behind his beleaguered manager, Mick McCarthy, as the inquests into the Republic of Ireland's failure to qualify for the European Championship finals continued.

Commenting on McCarthy's standing in the wake of yet another play-off defeat, the Ireland and Manchester United skipper was unequivocal in his support for the manager.

"He certainly has my support and that of the other senior players in the squad," he said. "Call it bad luck or whatever but at the end of the day, the players have to take responsibility for conceding those late goals in the Euro qualifying games.

"Jack Charlton was a hard act to follow and in a sense, Mick McCarthy was on a hiding to nothing when he took the job. But he's done well to rebuild the squad so quickly and get us to the point we're at now."

Although Ireland's qualification for the next World Cup finals is not yet a top priority in his crowded programme, Keane believes it is important to the development of younger players like Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and Ian Harte, that they get to play in Japan and Korea.

"I was lucky enough to be involved as a young player with Ireland in the World Cup finals in America and it certainly helped me in my career.

"Now it can do the same for the younger lads in the present squad and help them come of age as international players. It doesn't get any easier to qualify for the World Cup or European Championship when you start to drop in the seedings but yes, of course, we have a chance.

"Obviously, it's going to be difficult to go through from a group which includes Holland and Portugal but the players will be up for it."

If Keane didn't exactly stop the traffic on Dublin's main thoroughfare yesterday, he still created enough fuss to relegate another celebrated wearer of the red to second best for an hour or more, at the height of the afternoon's bustle in O'Connell Street.

The other man in scarlet is not unaccustomed to a commotion of two but then, Santa Claus never earned £50,000 a week. Ideally, the setting should have been Cork but after his elevation to the top of the list of Britain's biggest football earners last week, Keane's visit to Dublin to promote the sales at the Champions Sports store, was a homecoming of sorts.

It is one of sport's little ironies that the man who is never unduly inconvenienced by the heaviest of traffic on the pitch, frequently manages to portray the image of one who is mildly claustrophobic off it.

Undeniably, he now conceals his natural diffidence more effectively than in his younger days And that, almost certainly, is down to the fact that the megamoney of modern football, bestows an aura of authority on its prime practitioners.

After the saga of his record contract with Manchester United, he shows little appetite for recalling the nitty gritty which drove the team's supporters to the limits of despair and ultimately, joy in recent weeks.

Yet, he was keen praise his agent, Michael Kennedy - an Arsenal fan - and Alex Ferguson who, he says, did a lot of the behind the scenes work which finally ended in his putting his name on the dotted line last week.

"Michael Kennedy is not one of those agents whose in you face the whole time," he says. "He prefers to work in the background in getting you the best deal he can. And I'm lucky to have him.

"Alex Ferguson has always been fair with me. We've had a couple of minor problems over the years, like when we went a little over the top in celebrating last season's championship win but he's always been there for me when I needed him.

"He can be firm, too, of course, when he has to be and it goes almost without saying, that much of what has been achieved at the club in recent years, is down to him."

In a stark reversal of the classical roles, England international, Nicky Butt who accompanied Keane to Dublin, scarcely got in more than the odd sentence as the Ireland captain held court.

Yet, no less than his club-mates, he was quick to emphasise that Keane's decision to stay was a huge boost for the club. "He's simply a great player - and the club needs him," he said.