Keith Treacy believes it was high time for the FAI to bring Brian Kerr back into the fold at the top level of Irish football and would like to see the former Republic of Ireland manager's temporary role in John O'Shea's interim management team extended into a longer-term proposition.
With Stephen Kenny's permanent successor to be announced in early April according to the FAI's director of football Marc Canham, ex-Ireland and Manchester United defender O'Shea will take charge of the Boys in Green for the friendlies against Belgium and Switzerland on 23 and 26 March respectively.
O'Shea's management team for that brief stint was confirmed last Friday with his former international team-mate Glenn Whelan, Crystal Palace first-team coach Paddy McCarthy and ex-Ireland boss Kerr among the staff for the two games.
Speaking on the RTÉ Soccer Podcast, ex-Ireland winger Treacy spoke highly of his former colleague O'Shea as well as the credentials of the coaches that will be working alongside the Waterford man.
And in the case of Kerr, who will serve as a technical advisor, Treacy feels Irish football has lost out massively by not having the former St Patrick's Athletic and Faroe Islands boss involved at the coalface in recent years.
"Everybody is saying to me the FAI initiated the talks with Brian Kerr, isn't it brilliant and the FAI deserve a pat on the back - they do but this is more 'it's about time' rather than well done," he said.
"Brian should never have been out of Irish football or out of the FAI for that long. He shouldn't have been. His knowledge, his wealth of experience should have always had him in the door and the fact that he hasn't been was a real negative.
"But thankfully now the FAI are forward-thinking, they're getting onto the same page. I like the mixture for the first two games.
"I'm excited to go to the Aviva at the end of March and think, 'How are we going to set up?' Because I respect those four people who are coming in the door massively within the game.
"So I'm very interested to see how they go about it."
Whether O'Shea or other members of the interim management team stay on under the next manager is something that is yet to be decided, the official focus firmly remaining on the immediate term.
Kerr himself has stated that he is not thinking about anything beyond the upcoming friendlies but Treacy would love to see the 70-year-old's knowledge base utilised for the benefit of Irish football beyond the end of March if possible.
"I think he should be in there. John's said it there. [Kerr] has been around, everyone knows him, everybody respects him," he said.
"You can ask Brian anything. I've done little bits of punditry with him and you throw a name at him, somebody who's gone to the continent and there's no Google, there's no '(I'm) going to research this', it's just in the back of his head.
"He's just a man who watches hours and hours and hours of football and he does it with a smile on his face.
"Every time I've come across him in football circles, in punditry circles, he's been nothing but an absolute gentleman to me and always holds the highest standards."
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