ROBBIE KEANE MADE his latest piece of history with a 12-minute hat-trick as Ireland stuffed Gibraltar.
Keane’s first-half treble took him to 65 international goals and set the Boys in Green on course for a comfortable 7-0 win.
It means Ireland’s captain is now the top scorer in European Championship qualification and also moves to within three of the legendary Gerd Muller on the all-time list.
But he admitted afterwards that he pays no attention to the record books.
“I get messages from people telling me. My brother tells me all the time. He texts me and my mates text me but I genuinely couldn’t tell you who’s even close to me on [the all-time list]. That’s being honest.”
“I never think about what’s happened before,” he added. “I never think about what’s going to happen in the future because I can’t predict what’s going to happen in the future.
The past is the past. I scored those goals, but I’m so focused on what I’m doing now that I’m not really interested in anybody else to be honest.
Keane’s goals had Ireland 3-0 up after just 18 minutes and James McClean (2), Wes Hoolahan and an own goal from Gibraltar keeper Jordan Perez completed the rout.
Keane hailed Ireland’s preparation and said: “You can’t go into a game thinking, ‘How many goals am I going to score today?’ because it’s usually going to bite you in the ass.
“You have to respect everyone you’re playing against. Is there going to be goals there? Of course if you look at their last game against Poland but you can’t go into the game thinking that.
You have to go into the game and respect the opposition. If you do the things the right way, and we did — the build-up from Monday to today, we treated this like we were playing Germany, and I think you have to treat every game like that.
“If you have that attitude and respect, I think we’ll go far in this competition.”
Tuesday’s trip to Gelsenkirchen will be a completely different test but Keane feels Ireland can go now with plenty of confidence.
“Before this game, our main aim was to get six points going into the Germany game and we’ve done that so we’re going into the Germany game with a lot of confidence.
“Make no mistake, we can go there and get something out of that game. There’s no question about that.”
Robbie commitment to the irish cause over the years is understated and underestimated Well done to him When you compare him to the likes of Rooney,Ronaldo Zaltan better players but not better people —- robbie has never let us down in that regard
Awesome record he has. Really appreciating what he did for Ireland in his career. In the toughest confederatation in world football, Keane has scored 65 goals and he has scored against every top nation in Europe except England who are shit anyway.
And he did it all in the company of some absolute journey men such as Green, Whelan, ward, salmon, cox, Andrews, etc etc
Hes a clinical finisher. Would do a job in the premier league
Would he be any worse than Rickie Lambert.? Gets a hell of a lot of unjustified stick. Himself and Klose never really excelled in club football but were exceptional at international level. Keane is the ultimate professional.
I’m very happy for Robbie but this is rubbish. He was going on a while ago about how happy he was beating Bobby Charltons record. I’m sure he will get to Kloses soon enough. Looks fit and still scoring, even if it usually against mediocre opposition. Nobody does it better though.
Like Keane, but he doesn’t half talk some shite.