Thank you Robbie Keane

Say it. C'mon, how hard can four words be? Lose that sour expression and spit them out. Thank you Robbie Keane. Get rid of those facial tics. Quit squirming like someone's about to strap you to a chair for emergency psychoanalysis. Loosen up for pity's sake, you're not a goat stuck on an electric fence here.

It's a big week, so let's get it rolling with positive energy. Four words. That's hardly too much to ask. On Saturday night, we'll need him more than ever. So, all together now: Thank you Robbie Keane.

Cat still got your tongue?

It's a curious thing. When Niall Quinn retired, he did so as this country's all-time record scorer with 21 goals. Before him, Frank Stapleton was boss with 20. Keane has now scored as many as Quinn and Stapleton put together. He should be God in our midst. He isn't. We see only feet of clay.

This week brings a certain symmetry to the study of Robbie Keane and Ireland. The last time Raymond Domenech and France came to Dublin on World Cup business, Robbie was splashed all over the wrong end of the papers. It was September 2005 and he was pictured leaving a karaoke bar in the early hours, five days before the game.

The nation flew instantly into high dudgeon. So much for the promised science of the Brian Kerr era. Robbie beering and singing suddenly became an emblem of the team's preparation. They lost to France, Keane barely getting a kick. Kerr paid for it with his job.

Two years later, as Steve Staunton faced the same guillotine, Robbie invited himself onto the Late Late Show to lay the blame for Ireland's troubles at the feet of a quarrelsome media. It wasn't, perhaps, the character reference Staunton would have chosen. Robbie's appearance sounded precious and ever so slightly patronising.

It went down like a lead balloon.

Yet, he's still here, still doing a job for Ireland that -- frankly -- no one else can do.

Keane scored five of our 12 goals in Group 8 qualifying. Put starkly, those scores directly contributed 10 points to Ireland's closing tally of 18. Without him, South Africa would long since have drifted by as a pipe dream.

He is wealthy beyond the imagination of any of his old neighbours on the Glenshane estate in Tallaght. He is married to a beautiful, intelligent woman from Malahide. His career transfers have, to date, generated close to £80m. He is recognised as a model professional within the English game who, even though pretty shamefully treated by Rafa Benitez during his brief stint with Liverpool, has steadfastly rejected the Jermaine Pennant route of looking back in anger.

And, in 11 years as a senior international, Keane has hardly missed a game, unless hopelessly sick or injured. Other players like him. When Kerr's Ireland played two end-of-season friendlies against Nigeria and Jamaica in London in the summer of '04, the squad were startled to find that their hotel 'extras' had all been paid.

It was only on investigating that they discovered Keane had signed the cheque.

Logically, we should be in hopeless love with the guy. Someone should be smelting his bust for pride of place outside the new Aviva Stadium. We should be utterly besotted, but we aren't.

It's like we keep him endlessly at arms' length. We suspend our affection. Why?

No question, he can look vapid and clueless on the bad days. He can become an ornamental lie. The flapping arms and overegged theatrics with referees amplify a suspicion of deceit. Yet, all strikers have days when they feign appetite for business. When they pursue everything that is easy.

Keane isn't built for physical engagement with centre-half bullies, so his trick is to keep himself a moving target. With Spurs, that works better than with Ireland. Harry Redknapp commits more bodies forward. Defenders get drawn from the porch and Keane slips stealthily past like any smart thief would.

Without disruption, he struggles. When Jacques Santini was Spurs boss, the manager's natural caution brought a preponderance of defence-minded players into the team.

As an orthodox striker, forced to fend in an orthodox way, Keane was ineffectual. By the time Santini left, the Dubliner was deployed as a wide midfielder.

His two marquee goals in an Irish shirt (against Germany in Ibaraki 2002 and Italy in Bari 2009) were both delivered with the assistance of big men (Niall Quinn and Caleb Folan) operating as accomplices. He also, of course, scored a penalty (two in fact) against Spain in Suwon.

Yet, the seven-year gulf between that World Cup and Robbie's late equaliser against the Italians in April identifies the nagging wrinkle in his story. He is depicted as a flat-track bully. Free-scoring against the lesser lights, largely anonymous against the heavyweight teams.

Between Suwon ('02) and Bari ('09), Robbie's return in competitive internationals was 14 goals, (San Marino 3, Georgia 3, Cyprus 3, Faroe Islands 2, Albania 1, Israel 1, Wales 1). Hardly blue-chip victims.

Essentially, then, we don't trust his figures. We treat them as an illusion. Robbie Keane, by and large, doesn't trouble big opponents. He lacks pace. He chases Oscars. He sings karaoke. He sucks.

A former international colleague, who would prefer not to be named, suspects he knows the reason for our ambivalence. "Good old-fashioned Irish begrudgery," he argues. "People see this guy from Tallaght with all his wealth and the beautiful wife and it's like they're saying he's lost the plot or something.

"Robbie maybe doesn't help himself either. He can look desperately dour and he's not a particularly confident speaker. So very little of his personality comes across to those who don't know him."

The infamous Late Late Show appearance in October '07 was probably a case in point. Staunton had generated widespread surprise by appointing Keane as his captain and, excepting a Lansdowne Road hat-trick against the minnows of San Marino, the manager got little -- performance-wise -- in return.

Yet, Robbie identified the bulk of the fault as lying elsewhere.

Visibly nervous, he railed against the "over-powering effect" of negative media.

He talked of players "getting ridiculed from the Tuesday to the game on Saturday" and how it particularly affected the younger players. "You can see the pressure on their faces," he said. "Of course, they are intimidated. Listen, the whole team is affected by it. I think it has to stop somewhere.

"I'm not missing a chance just for a laugh!"

Keane spoke of being "worried about the next generation" and how a younger player had confided in him that he no longer enjoyed joining up with the Irish squad. "That makes me sick," said Robbie. "When I heard that, I was thinking to myself: 'This can't be right. This is not the way the Irish work... '"

Ostensibly, a lot of what he said was reasonable. Yet, in the context of his own leadership (or lack of) and coming in relatively close proximity to the karaoke episode, it drew a wrathful response from both media and supporters. One felt used, the other patronised.

Privately, Keane expresses the belief that he was "hung out to dry" in 2005. It was common policy during the Jack Charlton era for Irish players to enjoy a night on the town as little as three days before important internationals. Under Mick McCarthy, a little more restraint was encouraged, but there remained what was considered an "adult" approach to the squad's social charter.

Famously, McCarthy threw Phil Babb and Mark Kennedy out of his squad for the 2000 World Cup qualifier with Holland after they were arrested for being "drunk and disorderly" in Harcourt Street at 4.0 on a Tuesday morning and causing "criminal damage" to a female garda's car.

Keane had got his first senior cap under McCarthy two years earlier -- a friendly international against the Czech Republic in Olomouc -- and was a member of the U-18 European Championship-winning team, managed by Kerr that same season.

He was, essentially, educated in a football culture that would not have seen a night out five days before an important game as anything unprofessional.

When Kerr inherited the senior job, it was expected that Keane would be a major dressing-room ally for his fellow Dubliner. Yet, there was little evidence of affection between the two. If anything, Robbie seemed to become frustrated by Kerr's over-bearing management approach, being once heard to exclaim: "He thinks I'm still f****** 17!"

It was felt that Staunton's subsequent decision to make Keane captain of his country might have been an attempt to re-energise the player in a green shirt. It didn't happen.

Giovanni Trapattoni, thus, would have raised few eyebrows had he opted for change last year. Yet, the Italian didn't. He, too, saw leadership in Robbie Keane. A leadership that stands vindicated today.

Five goals, 10 points. A play-off place. The captain has delivered like never before in this group and will, almost certainly, be the one Irish player Domenech fears in Croke Park this weekend. Kevin Doyle is game and wonderfully genuine, yet he is pushed to the pin of his collar to score goals in the Premier League. Keane, by comparison, stockpiles.

Prior to his move to Liverpool, he had been the only striker to reach double figures in that division for six successive seasons.

Every time Keane is doubted, he seems to find a response within. Under Martin Jol, he initially railed against the rotation policy that had him vying with Defoe, Mido and Kanoute for a starting spot. By the time Jol was leaving, Keane had pretty much become his favourite player.

He will be 30 next July and, almost certainly, a centurion in caps. He may or may not still be captain of Tottenham (Keane is thought to covet the idea of playing for his beloved Celtic before his career is over). If Ireland have made the World Cup, no one will feel a greater sense of mission. Only two players scored against Germany in the 2002 finals. Brazil's Ronaldo might struggle to name the second one.

But that man is ours and, to us, he is priceless. Against France this weekend, we will lean on him as we always do. We will howl at him. We will berate him for all those feckless imperfections, the little vanities, the subtle cop-outs that make him such a contradiction. And all the time we will feel that if there's to be an Irish goal in the house, it will most probably fall to our No 10.

We'll never quite adore him. We'll never be seen lighting candles in front of his picture. But he remains our best shot in the big world. Reliable, maybe, as a giddy wind. Yet, still blowing.

So, deep breaths and positive energy people. Four words to kick-start this week of weeks. Thank you Robbie Keane.

It's been emotional.

- Vincent Hogan

Irish Independent