Ireland find calm after the storm as Keane goes

A new era for Irish football, AR – after Roy – will begin this afternoon with a friendly match against a local club, Sanfrecce Hiroshima, giving Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella the chance to re-establish the central midfield partnership that saw their country through the World Cup play-off second leg against Iran last November to qualify for next month's festivities.

That was an occasion on which Roy Keane departed unexpectedly, heading for Manchester the morning after the first match in Dublin, rather than Tehran, without bothering to say any fond farewells. Yesterday he was flying – and pulling – in the opposite direction from the rest of the squad again, bound for home via Hong Kong while his erstwhile team-mates breezed into their new training headquarters on the coast of Western Honshu as if a cloud had been lifted from them. There was singing on the bus to the airport and a note attached to Keane's normal seat read simply: "RIP".

The second most dramatic development to the Irish's captain banishment on Thursday was his colleagues' universal lack of sympathy for him following an abusive 10-minute tirade at the manager Mick McCarthy in front of them. "You were a ****** as a player and you're a ****** as a manager," was allegedly one of the choicer remarks that lost Keane all support as he was losing his cool. Even after a night's sleep, or lack of it, before flying home yesterday – reportedly to face more grief from a tabloid newspaper over his personal problems – he suggested: "I've no regrets." That illustrated the scale of the problem. "I think they were all fed up with him," said a Football Association of Ireland source, an assessment confirmed by the assertion of Steve Staunton, the replacement captain, that Keane had overstepped the line.

After leaving the so-called Paradise Island of Saipan, McCarthy decided to draw that line in the sand of Izumo. Touched by a reception as warm as the weather from more than 1,000 locals, a brass band and the mayor, the manager significantly stressed: "There's an air of normality and it's great." Pressed, predictably, to elaborate on his captain's absence, McCarthy insisted: "It's history. I'm not going to answer any more questions about it. I'm moving on. All I'm prepared to discuss is the 22 players I have with me."

There should of course be 23, but the timing of Keane's outburst was too late this time for a replacement to be called up – the captain screaming at the coach is not listed as a valid reason under Fifa's regulations – and any further efforts to find a player not already on a beach of his own is doomed to failure.

Players McCarthy was prepared to talk about, though the news of them was disappointing, included Fulham's Steve Finnan and Wimbledon's Kenny Cunningham, who will miss today's run-out with ankle and hamstring injuries respectively. Gary Kelly and Richard Dunne – preferred, surprisingly, to Gary Breen – come into what is otherwise a first choice XI; something that would have been unthinkable without Keane only 48 hours ago.

The debate in Ireland continued to rage yesterday about the rights and wrongs of his behaviour (with some sympathy for the legitimacy of his initial complaints about lack of professionalism, but very little for his sense of timing). Even Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister and a staunch Manchester United supporter, felt moved to get involved, offering his services as a mediator between Keane and McCarthy.

Although Keane was yesterday named Manchester United's player of the year in a poll of MUTV subscribers, not everyone at Old Trafford was optimistic about Mr Ahern's chances. "Bertie Ahern is a regular at Old Trafford and is obviously keen to see Ireland do well but even the Pope would struggle to sort this one out," a United spokesman said.

So Kinsella, who has had a patchy season for Charlton, and Holland, who experienced that sinking feeling with Ipswich, will be the engine room of the team, with the Sunderland pair Jason McAteer and Kevin Kilbane outside them. Damien Duff and Robbie Keane remain the favoured attacking duo for the opening game on 1 June against Cameroon. Given the injury problems afflicting Germany, the African champions suddenly seem the form horses in Group E, and a point against them would be an even better result than it looked when the draw was made.

That is for next week. For the moment, as McCarthy stressed, something like normality has returned, and the Irish feel more at home. "I loved the reception, they made us feel really welcome," he said of Izumo, where, unlike Tokyo, there is a feeling that a World Cup is taking place. The capital city, almost uniquely in the competition's history, is not staging a match. Izumo was passed over for that honour, but is thrilled to have been chosen as a training base. Today's match inaugurates a brand-new stadium.

Ray Treacy, the former Charlton and Swindon striker who has done a few miles in his 15 years as the Irish squad's official travel agent, said: "They're probably the most welcoming people I've come across in all my years of travelling. They're really proud we selected Izumo." And, like the Republic's squad, they don't seem to be missing Roy Keane.