"If there is anything new, we will make a statement.’’

Ireland’s star player was sent home after the team meeting bust-up with McCarthy, in which he swore at the manager and criticised his coaching ability.

And after a spate of interviews by the feuding pair, the terse statement issued by McCarthy’s depleted 22-man party this morning - that they are ‘‘in no doubt the interests of the squad are best served without Roy’’ - appeared to kill off any lingering hope of a Keane return.

But McCarthy prised the door open again tonight, disclosing that an apology from Keane could spark a reunion. ‘‘If the players wanted the situation reversed I would go with them,’’ he said.

‘‘I would back them, absolutely. I think the correct and proper procedure and protocol for an apology is for somebody to pick the phone up and ring the person who feels an apology needs to be made and accepted. That has not been the case.

‘‘I don’t think there should be negotiations going on to apologise. If I feel I need to apologise I go and pick up the phone or see the person and apologise to them.

‘‘If there is an apology made I will discuss it with the staff, the players who were in that room (in Saipan) and who witnessed me being told basically I couldn’t manage, I couldn’t coach, I was being called this and that.’’

McCarthy’s stance is markedly different from the bullish position he adopted after dismissing Keane, when he issued a reported ‘‘back me or I quit’’ ultimatum to his players and the Football Association of Ireland.

Whether the latest twist in an increasingly-complex farce - which has totally overshadowed the build-up to Ireland’s biggest match for eight years - does spark a Keane-McCarthy reunion now rests on how much pride the notoriously-broody ex-captain is prepared to swallow.