Saipan review – Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy’s epic spat becomes amusing state-of-the-nation psychodrama

Éanna Hardwick and Steve Coogan star as furious Keane and his luckless manager McCarthy in this retelling of the Man Utd star’s infamous 2002 walkout

Here is a sports drama which is also a true-life psychodrama of the Irish republic. In the run-up to the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the nation was convulsed with dismay when mercurial star player Roy Keane stormed out of Ireland’s chaotic training camp on the Pacific island of Saipan and got on the first plane home after a colossal row with manager Mick McCarthy. Could it really be true that Ireland’s key performer was going to let the side down? Was he just a spoilt Man U brat? Or was Keane a true Irish patriot, insisting on high standards of training and management for Irish football which this (English-born) manager wasn’t providing?

It’s a story which is capably, straightforwardly told by film-makers Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, and well acted by its leads Éanna Hardwicke as Keane and Steve Coogan as McCarthy. It is almost like a theatrical chamber piece, putting us on the spot with the two male egos as they butt heads – but perhaps giving less sense of the angst they were creating back home.