Stephen Kenny believes there's been a "disconnect" between the Irish public and their national soccer team for "well over a decade" and vowed to help develop a more progressive style of play that fans can identify with.
Kenny was named the Republic of Ireland Under-21 boss last week and will take over the senior job from Mick McCarthy in the summer of 2020.
It's just reward for a stellar League of Ireland career, most notably at Dundalk, where he consistently fielded easy-on-the-eye teams who collected cups domestically and punched way above their weight in Europe.
Now, he'll look to work his magic with Ireland.
"For well over a decade there's been a disconnect with the Irish public in how the team plays and the style of play," Kenny told The Marian Finucane Show on RTÉ Radio 1.
"There has been a disconnect, there's no doubt about it. I don't think I've been appointed because Dundalk have won four league titles in the last five years.
"It wasn't so much the numbers of trophies won, it's the style in which it was achieved.
"People are inspired by a different way of playing and want to coach their schoolboy teams to play in a progressive way and then come and see the national team and relate to it.
"I know at grassroots level right throughout the country they want to see teams pass the ball in a more progressive way. We want to see individual flair, we want to see skill, we want to see a team playing in a cohesive way."
Kenny said his appointment came about extremely quickly, and again reiterated how tough it was to leave the Lilywhites while also conceding the Ireland job was too good to turn down.
"It was a great season with Dundalk. It culminated in the FAI Cup final at the Aviva Stadium and it was just a great finale. Things moved quickly. Last Saturday I was offered the position I've been offered. You don't get asked twice to manage your country.
"Dundalk wasn't something I was going to leave lightly but to manage Ireland, it's the pinnacle of your career. It's such a huge honour.
"No one could have envisaged Martin losing his job last week. I didn't think that was going to happen. Everything happened really quickly."
When pushed on the cut-throat nature of management at the highest level: "It is the most ruthless of professions. All of the great managers of the past have experienced it [being sacked]. It is an occupational hazard."
Kenny also opened up on how the changing landscape in the English game is affecting young Irish talent, stressing the need for investment to help rising stars flourish on this island.
"There has been a reliance on the English academies; with Irish schoolboy team to produce them up to a certain age and then sending them to England. Obviously all the great players in recent history, Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Richard Dunne, Shay Given - that's been their pathway. And it's really worked well.
"But it's becoming less and less. It's very much a global game now in the English youth system. There are less and less Irish players at Premier League clubs at all levels. There has to be a new way and here has to be a new thinking in how players are developed.
"There's a lot of good work being done [high performance director] Ruud Dokter and his coaches with the various national teams, 15s, 16s, 17s, 18s and 19s. In relation to club level, there are a high percentage of players in the international team who've come through the League of Ireland. That's a different route.
"There probably hasn't been the investment in schoolboy academy level that's needed to really produce players that if they are going to higher standard European leagues then transfer fees can be demanded and that can be a sustainable business on its own."
