Kevin Kilbane: Saipan ‘kinda killed the time’

Whatever else you might say about Saipan, one thing’s for sure. It wasn’t boring.

As Martin O’Neill fine-tunes Ireland’s build-up plans for Euro 2016, Kevin Kilbane wryly observes that one upside of the infamous falling out between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy before the 2002 World Cup was that it helped pass the time.

“We certainly had something to talk about before the World Cup,” he says. “In many respects it kinda killed a lot of time — and there was a lot of time to kill.”