Kilbane, who scored with a fine glancing header to open the scoring against the Scots, said: “It’s fair to say the issue with Roy has always been hanging over us.

“But it’s over with now. It’s a closed chapter, and we’ve now got to get on with it.

“The players and the management are in it together – we always have been and we always will be.

"We’ve got bit games coming up, and the story with Roy has ended – so we move on.”

Kilbane was one of several players in a weakened Irish side who put in a good performance to get new manager Brian Kerr’s tenure as boss off to a good start.

The Sunderland player gave the visitors the lead early on, and when Clinton Morrison made it 2-0 after just 16 minutes there was no way back for the disappointing Scots.

Kilbane admits the Irish players had to make amends following their disappointing European Championship qualifying results of late and he hopes the performance will be a springboard for the rest of the campaign.

He said: “We had to prove a point to ourselves after our last showing against Switzerland.

“We didn’t play well then and we knew we had to set the record straight.

“Now we’ve got to take that performance into the qualifying games coming up against Georgia and Albania.

“When the qualifiers come about they will be harder games – but if we can play half as well as we did against Scotland then I’m sure we will be okay.

“We also had Robbie Keane and Damien Duff out. They are two quality players and they’ll definitely come in and start the next game.

“Everyone else is playing for the other places in the team, so we all have to make a statement for ourselves.”

Ireland’s Millwall midfielder Stephen Reid made the most of his call-up - turning in an impressive performance on the right hand side – and he is keen to become a permanent fixture in Kerr’s side.

“Everyone starts with a clean slate, and Brian (Kerr) will want to look at all his options,” said Reid.

“For those in the starting XI it was important to put on a good show.

“Obviously it was Brian’s first game in charge, and it’s always good to get off to a winning start. I think we controlled it and we had a couple of chances. It could have been more.

“It’s been good this week, and everyone has been out to impress. There have been a lot of pull-outs, and when everyone is fit it’s going to be a really strong squad.

“I hope I’ll be involved in the next one.”