Keane ‘honoured’ to lead from the front

“I’M grateful to Stan for giving me this opportunity and for putting his trust in me. When he asked me on Sunday, I was delighted, excited, ecstatic - you name it.”

“It’s a great honour. I won’t let him down or let anyone else down. For my family as well, it’ll be real proud moment to see me leading the team out. And a proud moment for me.”

This is your captain speaking - but to hear new Irish skipper Robbie Keane speak at all is a bit of a novelty, since he has kept the Irish media at arm’s length since the inflated controversy around press coverage of his socialising days before the World Cup qualifier against France last September.