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.

And tonight at the Aviva Stadium, coincidence dictates that the North Atlantic minnows will again provide the opposition as Robbie Keane smashes yet another Irish record, eclipsing Shay Given’s 125 appearances to become the most capped player in the nation’s football history.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of, as the man of the hour readily acknowledged yesterday.

“I remember the jersey was about 10 times too big for me,” he said of his debut away to the Czech Republic in 1998. “I would never have thought then for one second I would be sitting here now and saying I had the most caps for my country.”

Sitting beside the man he calls “the kap-ee-tan”, Giovanni Trapattoni said he saw no reason why Keane shouldn’t stop till he drops. “The older you get the more you love playing,” said the veteran of all veterans. “When you eat, you get more of an appetite.”

Keane, 33 next month, is clearly of the same mind.

“When you get older, your desire and your hunger are even more because even though I don’t I feel I’m coming to the end — and I’m not, I still have another five, six years at least left in me — but you know you are not that young lad anymore where you are not too worried about the future and you feel like you can go on forever.

“People forget I am 32 years of age. It’s not like I’m 34 or 36 or whatever. People are talking about [David] Forde being in the squad and he’s a newcomer, but he’s 33. I am a year older than Wes Hoolahan and he’s a newcomer. John O’Shea is the same age as me. People talk about it because I have been around for so long but I still have the same appetite as I did when I was 18 years of age. I have certainly got no intentions at all of retiring at this moment in time. I will retire when I stop scoring goals.”

As for tonight’s milestone, Keane observed: “It’s a big occasion for myself, but I think more so for the family. They are the ones who are speaking about it all the time and very, very excited about it whereas, for me, the most important thing is playing the game and getting a result for the team.”

Before kick off, the Aviva will get a glimpse of the next generation Keane, in the diminutive shape of Robbie’s young son.

“Robert is going to be the mascot, which will be nice for him,” smiled his dad. “He’s only four but he’s at that age now where he’s understanding who his daddy is. He is always talking about football, so it will certainly be great for him.”

Asked if Robert criticises his dad’s performances, Robbie replied with a grin: “No, not as badly as you.”

But, behind the laughter, there was an awareness in the room that, as Alan Kelly noted the other day, Keane has not always received the full credit his achievements for Ireland deserve.

“It’s not something I worry too much about, to be totally honest,” said the skipper. “As a football player, all you have to do if you do get criticised is do your talking on the pitch.

“And the way you do that is by scoring goals and turning up for your country when other people don’t turn up and don’t want to play for their country. If people want to criticise me for wanting to play for my country, then I don’t think I’ve got the problem, they have.”

Not only goals and games, then – it seems there’s also plenty of fight left in the old dog too.