Here is a sports drama which is also a true-life psychodrama of the Irish republic. In the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the nation was convulsed with dismay when mercurial star player Roy Keane stormed out of Ireland’s chaotic training camp on the Pacific island of Saipan and got on the first plane home after a colossal row with manager Mick McCarthy. Could it really be true that Ireland’s key performer was going to let the side down? Was he just a spoilt Man U brat? Or was Keane a true Irish patriot, insisting on high standards of training and management for Irish football which this (English-born) manager wasn’t providing?
It’s a story which is capably, straightforwardly told by film-makers Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, and well acted by its leads Éanna Hardwicke as Keane and Steve Coogan as McCarthy. It is almost like a theatrical chamber piece, putting us on the spot with the two male egos as they butt heads – but perhaps giving less sense of the angst they were creating back home.
McCarthy – English born but with Irish roots, an Irish passport and a proud sense of Irish heritage – knew that his trickiest player would be the legendarily difficult Keane, and so it proved. Hardwicke conveys Keane’s tense, opaque quality: his mutely provocative air of entitlement, his clear belief in himself as a star in a different league from his fellow players, and his inability to resist briefing the press. An interesting part of the drama is the English/Irish divide: Keane cannot quite conceal his contempt for McCarthy’s credentials and for his hero-worship of former Ireland manager Jack Charlton, an Englishman. But it is notable that he will listen to the terse advice of Alex Ferguson – a Scot.
Everyone thought that Keane had a point about the appalling facilities. But did Keane simply think they were going to lose and wanted to distance himself from the inevitable calamity? If so, then what happened after he left made Keane look absurd. As for Coogan’s McCarthy, he can’t quite bring himself to make nice with Keane, but maybe niceness on that level can’t be made. An amusing vignette.
• Saipan is out now in Ireland and Northern Ireland, and on 23 January in rest of the UK.
