Martin O'Neill managed to deflect just a little of the attention from one Corkman to another at training this morning when he revealed that Brian Lenihan, the 19 year-old full-back who only left for Hull City a matter of weeks ago, will join up with the Ireland squad as the manager bids to broaden his limited options.
The former Cork city player is almost certainly one for the longer term, although O'Neill suggests he is anxious to have a look at him, while Roy Keane is very much the man of the moment in whom the Ireland boss feigned almost complete disinterest.
He has not, he said, read any of The Second Half, asked Keane about it or even, he claimed a little incredibly, been sure regarding timing of this Thursday's launch. The confusion on this last point was not, of course, limited to the northerner.
O’Neill, in any case, insisted that he was not concerned about the fuss and suggested that if it wasn’t being created over the publication of his assistant’s book, there would be some other reason.
“I’ve not read it, Peter (Sherrard, the asociation’s Communications Director) has just given me some updates; some recent stuff seems to be quite funny.
"The games are very important obviously and the main reasons why we are here. The Gibraltar game first and we have to go win that game and get ourselves prepared after that, I wouldn't want anything to be a distraction but then you could turn around and tell me that me speaking about this is a distraction. Such is life and you get on with it.
“It obviously was going to cause some sort of furore at some stage or another, the very fact he put his name to this book would suggest that it’s exactly what would happen. It’s there and it doesn’t matter. I genuinely don’t know what the headlines are in the book.
“If there hadn’t been a book, there would have been something else, seriously. He would have slipped down there on the field and we’d have been talking about that, maybe broken his leg or something like that. There would have been something. There will always be something here in the lead up to games and that I can guarantee.”
The players, too, were taking all the fuss over Keane’s book in their stride.
Former United midfielder Darron Gibson said: “There have been a few comments, but nobody’s talking about it. The lads just get on with it. There have been a few jokes made around the table, but, like I said, nothing serious.
“I have not seen any of the comments, to be honest with you, so I’m in no position to be comment on it. I’d rather not.”
Asked if Keane is the type of assistant whose leg players can pull, Gibson replied with a smile: “I’ve not tried. I’ll let you try first.”
Asked about the call-up of Lenihan, who has yet to play any part in the first team at Hull, O’Neill said he had made the decision after speaking with some of the teenager’s club-mates as he hasn’t actually seen him play yet.
“No, I haven’t, no,” he said. “But the reports have been fine, absolutely. I was speaking to some of the lads here at Hull, who said he has settled in well, and of course he is delighted to be coming.”
He acknowledged that David Meyler, who started at right back against Oman last month, is also an option to play there on Saturday against Gibraltar but said that he would have to "see how things develop".
Séamus Coleman, he all but confirmed, however, will miss both this game and the one against Germany next week as will his Everton team mate James McCarthy, with O'Neill expressing the hope that the pair will be available again in November.
All 25 players who trained today are fit, meanwhile, although some, he suggested at lacking match sharpness due to their lack of first team opportunities in England.
