New FAI deputy chief executive Niall Quinn has refused to dismiss the prospect of Roy Keane returning to work for the organisation.

SHORT of some fiendish combination of brainwashing, kidnapping, bribery, rule-bending, and sending time’s arrow into reverse, Ireland’s only hope of seeing Jack Grealish grace the Aviva Stadium in the summer is if England top their Euro 2020 group and so contest a round-of-16 game in Dublin, potentially against Germany.

Though a player of his quality will inevitably find himself repeatedly linked with a move back to England, Shamrock Rovers playmaker and Irish international Jack Byrne appears happy to be settling in for the long haul with the Hoops this season.

Like most League of Ireland projects, Pat O’Sullivan’s venture with his hometown club of Limerick ended in failure.

The Republic of Ireland’s 40-year run of misery against Denmark has continued as Ireland were left to retreat to the back-up of a Euro 2020 play-off.

Larry Ryan picks out five things we probably knew already from Ireland's draw with Denmark...

When Glenn Whelan ‘retired’ from international football, a stop watch rather than a gold watch would have been a more appropriate gift.

Ireland are facing one of the in-form teams in Europe, whose unbeaten run over the past three years is lurking them towards world record territory.

Rather than feeling bullish about another Dublin cake-walk next month, Denmark manager Åge Hareide is convinced Mick McCarthy will have Ireland better prepared than his predecessor Martin O’Neill.

There was no quick getaway from their Swiss mission for the Republic of Ireland players.

Prior to Geneva, when did Ireland last start with 3-5-2?

At least the phoney war is over, the fable of Mick McCarthy clothed in Merlin the Magician garb belatedly binned.

Barring one adventurous run in which he cut inside a couple of Georgian defenders into their penalty box, Matt Doherty made little impact during the stalemate in Tbilisi.

Greetings from Tbilisi where, after a long haul that saw us checking into our hotel at 4.30am, a modest proposal formed in my addled brain: I think Istanbul should be twinned with Limerick Junction.

Wow, this Aaron Connolly kid looks pretty good, are we sure he’s not English? Like, really sure?

Glancing down at his notebook, the journalist prefaces his question for Conor Hourihane with what he believes is a statement of fact.

It became a recurrent theme, on John Delaney visits to 2,000 clubs during his 14 years as FAI chief executive, to conclude by reciting the salutary advice of his mother Joan about always bringing something for his hosts.

Matt Doherty claims he had a heated telephone conversation with Martin O’Neill after the latter’s reign as Ireland manager came to an end.

An entertaining game finished with a winning burst from De La Salle to earn their place in the Waterford SHC final at the expense of Mount Sion.

It is with a certain amused disdain that I daily digest the dispatches from colleagues out beyond in the Land Of The Rising Scrum, with all that mildly anguished stuff about finding themselves strangers in a strange land.

David Meyler has opened up about his struggles in dealing with three miscarriages suffered by his wife in the space of a year.

In a global football landscape increasingly studded with state-of-the-art academies, you don’t hear too much talk about street football anymore.

On a night players from both sides found it difficult to find their feet, Mick McCarthy didn’t slip up in keeping Ireland on the road to a third successive Euro finals.

There were times when this would have felt just like old times for Glenn Whelan. And everyone watching.

In the wake of withering criticism from Roy Keane, Jon Walters has taken to Twitter to post a picture of himself in boxing pose - his gloved right fist drawn back and aimed at the camera – accompanied by the caption: "Insert Face Here".

Garry Doyle halflength cut Saipan: The year was dominated by that single word. Chances are no-one in Irish football had ever heard of the place before but by the time 2002 was out, it was as infamous as the other distant battlefields young Irishmen had fought in — Ypres, Gallipoli, and the Somme.

Richard Dunne believes Mick McCarthy’s demand for his players to put the emphasis on applying rather than absorbing pressure — in contrast to what he saw as a fear of failure beginning to inhibit the team under the previous management regime — means Ireland are now in a better position to make home advantage tell against Switzerland tonight.

Gary Neville, the former Manchester United and England defender, believes Roy Keane is a significantly smaller managerial “risk” for clubs now than at any stage of his coaching career.

Austin Gleeson feels that the Waterford players must take responsibility for results over the last two summers.

Mick McCarthy recently admitted Troy Parrott is a ‘shoo-in’ for a call-up to the senior squad if he figures regularly for Spurs this season

They were known as the superb six, a cohort ready-made to complement Ireland’s golden generation of Robbie Keane and Damien Duff, but the tribulations of those bright young things should temper the hype attaching to the latest sextet.

Newly-promoted Sheffield United are closing on a €6.6m move for Ireland international striker Callum Robinson.

The investigation into allegations of illegal surveillance in prisons concluded in March, but the findings have yet to be published, says Special Correspondent Michael Clifford.

En route to an audience with Robbie Keane in Crumlin the other day, the journey down the Long Mile Road and past the Half-Way House offered a handy metaphor for where Ireland are at in their Euro 2020 campaign.

At the half-way point in Euro 2020 qualifying, the good news for Ireland is that they sit atop the group table with a healthy haul of ten points from four games.

Mick and Seamus had done their bit to temper the giddiness. Coach and captain had held up Ireland’s struggles against Gibraltar two months ago as reason for caution ahead of this latest European qualifier, but there was always the sense that the audience were nodding heads out of respect rather than agreement.

As expected, Ireland have overcome Gibraltar thanks to an own goal and a late Robert Brady strike. Ger McCarthy runs the rule over the lessons learned.

After doing the heavy lifting in Copenhagen on Friday, Ireland should be relishing a comparatively easy shift in Dublin tonight.

Ireland hero Darren Randolph revealed his side were determined to give Denmark a battle in Friday night’s 1-1 draw.

It was just of 5pm local time, four hours before kick-off, when an open-topped party bus stopped in traffic outside the Ireland team’s hotel in the centre of Copenhagen.

The last time Shane Duffy scored against Denmark with a header…well, do we really need to go through all that again?

Ireland being paired once again with Denmark and Georgia in the Euro 2020 draw in Dublin in December might have induced an unwelcome sense of déjà vu but it also made Group D into something akin to a useful laboratory experiment, offering a convenient then-and-now contrast to help us better determine the state of the Irish game in 2019.

Callum O’Dowda has now gone beyond the point in his career, for both club and country, where he is viewed as a bright prospect.