Mick McCarthy stopped by the OTB studio yesterday afternoon.
During his sit-down with Joe Molloy, talk eventually turned to the recent trouble in the Irish camp - specifically the 'altercations' which Jon Walters and Harry Arter have had with Roy Keane.
During a question about Harry Arter's decision to remove himself from contention to take part in Irish camps for the foreseeable future, Mick McCarthy interrupted Joe:
"What about Jon? On the treatment table. He's 34 isn't he?," he asked, alluding to the theory that Keane's 'altercations' with the Ipswich forward and Harry Arter centered on comments made regarding their fitness.
Here is the passage which followed:
Mick: Nobody ever complained about Paul McGrath being on the treatment table.
Joe: No, I’m sure Roy in the latter half of his career spent plenty of time resting up, or watching his body. It happens.
Mick: Well you, you know, you never accuse a player of feigning injury, do you?
Joe: [Laughs] No… That’s a loaded comment to make…
[Pause]
Mick: Or do you have the right to do it? I don’t know.
[Pause]
Joe: Are you saying you didn’t?
Mick: Eh, I’m not saying anything I did.
The topic came up later in the conversation when Joe put it to Mick McCarthy that he must be alluding to Saipan and Roy Keane claiming that he had been accused of faking an injury by Mick McCarthy.
Joe: Are you saying that you never said it? Or…?
Mick: Well that comment’s been made, isn't it? You never…
Joe: That’s what Roy said, I was accused of feigning injury, and you can’t do that, that’s why I lost the plot.
Mick: Yeah, well. [Pause] You have to look back on all the things that were said. There’s only been one million, nine hundred and fifty nine thousand pages written on it. So, eh, I’ll let that one lie at that.
Joe: Okay...
A few moments later Mick concluded:
"It's just an irony, that's all I'll say about that."
Hmm.
While the initial fallout from Saipan focused on Roy Keane's issues with the training facilities on the island he recently cited accusations that he had faked an injury as the primary reason behind his falling-out with Mick.
Speaking to the ITV World Cup Podcast in June of this year he said:
"I was accused of faking an injury and not being available for a match when I was actually injured. What Mick was saying wasn't true so if you make them accusations against me, guess what's going to happen. You're going to get fireworks."
"To be accused of missing a game because of an injury I supposedly didn't have, believe it or not I let people off lightly. There could have been a lot more trouble shall we say," he continued.
In this clip from the 2002 documentary Roy Keane : As I See It footage of him on holiday in Portugal after his walkout also alludes to the injury accusations:
"I wasn't going to sit there, especially when Mick made the accusations about me, which seem to have been swept under the carpet a little bit, about me faking injuries. For him to accuse me of that was the biggest insult. I told him that he was wrong and I didn't fake an injury and that I didn't respect him as a manager, as a person, as a player."
"He said, 'Well, if you don't respect me, you can't play for me.' And I left the room. It was over," he told the documentary crew.
