Keane had got a little bow-and-arrow routine worked out. He knew in advance what he wanted to do and where he wanted to do it. Come the glorious moment, he was going to run down to the corner where the roving television camera and the press photographers were gathered, and pretend to twang off an arrow, in the manner of Robin Hood, the great legends of the American wild west and numberless children between the ages of five and nine the whole world over.
Robbie had bothered to invest time and forethought in a short, camera-friendly dramatic interlude, unlike a few Sol Campbells we could mention - only to have the execution almost ruined by the mindless actions of a few of his team-mates, who insisted on running to the corner with Robbie and (unbelievable, this) getting in the way.
Ferdinand must have been turning in his hotel room. There was Robbie, doing his best to twang off his entirely imaginary arrow. And there were people like Steve Staunton and Mark Kinsella - both of them old enough and experienced enough at international level to know better - climbing all over Keane's back and making any kind of twanging, real or imaginary, completely impossible.