Big Mick is now Slick Mick

SLICK.

Wherever you stand on the Return of the Mac, you have to hand it to him: if Ireland’s passing game is as smooth as his performance at yesterday’s press conference, then here come the good times once more.

The last time he landed the job, we all knew him as Big Mick, a moniker that inferred a certain unsophistication as it did a general affection.

This time around he appears to be going by a different handle, if you don’t mind. Big Mick is now Slick Mick. Nice to meet you, Ma’am.

He couldn’t have been more dignified and diplomatic or well-mannered and good-humoured when it came to any question he answered or any of the publics he mentioned.

He was highly respectful of the outgoing management, particularly its assistant. Like everyone else he laughed when someone asked if maybe after 16 years on, it was finally time to move on from Saipan, then triggered another bout of giggles when responding, “Why?! What happened there?”

He then proceeded to rationally argue that neither he nor Mr Keane — or “Roy” as he simply referred to him as — should be defined by what happened on that island. Both had successful playing careers, he pointed out, hastening to add that Roy’s was “unbelievable, far better than mine”, and that he would always remember and be grateful for how outstanding Keane was in helping him and Ireland qualify for that World Cup.

It took about eight minutes for Saipan to be mentioned. After a brief laugh, McCarthy said he and Roy Keane should be remembered for different things. And that is the end of it. #rtesoccer pic.twitter.com/kH4sJvjiAd

— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) November 25, 2018

Yet when he pointed out in his own defence that he had gone on to have “a successful career as a manager”, he had the good grace to stop short of saying it has been far better than Roy’s.

He extended the attending media members the same courtesy as Roy by warmly calling them by their first names whenever he could fit into the conversation — a name-dropper in the best possible sense; again, it was quite the contrast to his previous stint as national team manager when the tension at press conferences were unnerving, even the one immediately after the famous 1-0 win over Holland.

At one point yesterday he even said we had “good young players”. Even before he’s ever worked with them on the training ground — says you, maybe because he hasn’t yet worked with them on the training ground — and he’s already spoken more positively about the technical prowess of the footballers at his disposal than the two previous incumbents did at any point over the last 10 years.

What was particularly significant if not obvious yesterday though was seeing McCarthy flanked at the top table by the FAI’s High Performance director, or “Ruud” as he routinely referred to him by, again dispensing with the need for surnames.

The last manager didn’t seem to be on first-name terms with Mr Dokter. Google their names and you’ll come across only one photograph with both Martin O’Neill and Ruud Dokter in it — posing for a snap with graduates of an FAI Uefa Pro Licence course three years ago — and even then the pair of them aren’t side by side.

Yesterday Dokter was blinking from all the flashbulbs capturing him holding a green jersey with McCarthy. While Robbie Keane likewise struck a pose for the cameras, he wasn’t rolled out to speak to the press.

Ruud was, alongside Slick Mick. The Dutchman spoke yesterday about how it was “very important to have a connection between all the teams, from the U15s to the senor team”.

That connection wasn’t apparent under the previous management, as fleetingly uplifting as it was to see O’Neill last May out on the pitch remonstrating with officials after the U17’s contentious exit on penalties from the European championships.

That connection seems to be a greater priority and possibility now, not least because McCarthy has a preference for what Dokter terms “nice football”.

Yet as slick as Mick and Ruud were yesterday, the man trying to put the best face forward yesterday was John Delaney.

Over the past week his position has come under greater scrutiny than it ever has, and with good reason, not least for how he allowed yet another senior manager stay on at least a year too long and ended up paying both the outgoing and incoming managements an over-generous figure that his association can barely afford.

Yesterday it was apparent that he’s banking much of his own credibility on that of Dokter’s and the results various underage teams have enjoyed in recent weeks; he wasn’t wrong in saying that the number one seeding of both the U19 and U17 national squads has been underplayed — and possibly not even known — by commentators calling for his head.

He’s also pinning a lot on the relationship between Slick Mick and his already-nominated successor, “Stephen”, another friend Mick has only just met.

Is “the strategy and the vision” Delaney devised one that was just made on the fly?

Maybe, but going by both the prominence afforded to Dokter and the equanimity of McCarthy yesterday, it may just come off.