Evergreen Keane has lots left to give

Last Sunday, as Ireland played Georgia at the Aviva Stadium – and Robbie Keane took his international goal haul to 56 — it was precisely 20 years to the day since Frank Stapleton had set a then Irish goal scoring record by nabbing his 20th for his country in a friendly in Malta which was Ireland’s final warm-up game for Italia ’90.

Incredibly, that record would stand for another 11 years, until Niall Quinn, on the occasion of his 35th birthday, made it 21 in a 4-0 win over Cyprus en route to the World Cup in Japan and Korea.

But, with a new scoring sensation from Dublin on the scene, it took only a further three years for the record to go again — this time when Robbie Keane scored his 22nd goal for Ireland with a penalty against the Faroe Islands in 2004.