National debate over – McCarthy

Oct 16 2008 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

JAMES McCarthy this week opened his heart on his decision to close the door on Scotland, and said he couldn’t turn his back on Ireland.

Over the last three years, the 17-year-old Hamilton midfielder has moved up through the ranks of the Republic of Ireland set-up, and said Scotland are simply too late with their attempts to bring him into the fold.

McCarthy said he would have been proud to turn out for the country of his birth – but they weren’t interested when it mattered.

McCarthy, who qualifies for the Republic through an Irish grandfather, said: “Scotland came in at the last minute and I couldn’t snub Ireland because they’ve been good to me. And that’s it put to bed.

“I would have gone with Scotland if they came in first, because I’m Scottish, but my advisor at the time, George Gray, gave [then Scotland under-21 boss] Archie Knox a bit of paper with my name on it.

“They said they’d come and watch me, but then said it was ‘a matter of opinion’, as if they didn’t think I was good enough.

“Ireland came in, had a look at me, and put me in the next squad. I was happy to get an international call-up, and in the end Scotland just weren’t interested at the time.

“As it’s turned out, they’ve now come in, but it’s gone too far for that as far as I’m concerned. I’ve played with Ireland’s under-17s, 18s, 19s and 21s and I’m happy.

“I’ve heard that Ireland want to play me in a first-team game and I would be delighted, but I’ve only read that in newspapers so I don’t know what’s happening yet.”

McCarthy feels that he has drawn a line under the issue of his international status and is focused on trying to help Hamilton get three points from Saturday’s visit by St Mirren.

He added: “I’m happy now to just get my head down and work away. St Mirren is a big game for us. We’re all looking forward to it and hopefully we can take three points, especially since it’s at home.

“It’s a really big match for us, the players and the club, so we’ll have to go out with all guns blazing.”

McCarthy insists the Hamilton dressing room is still upbeat despite conceding eight goals in their last two games, but put the results into perspective.

He explained: “We’ve had a couple of bad results, but while it was 4-0 against Celtic, against Falkirk it was never a 4-1 game.

“I thought I did all right against Celtic but their class showed on the day. They’ve got great players, like Aiden McGeady, Georgios Samaras and Shunsuke Nakamura.

“They turned up on the day while I don’t think we did, and they bossed the game.

“We were playing in front of over 55,000 people. It was great, the atmosphere was great, and to play in that kind of arena is what you always want, so hopefully we’ll keep working away and go on to better things.

“We have some very hard games coming up, and being away to Rangers in the Co-operative Insurance Cup quarter-final will be very tough, but the league is also what we’re looking forward to.

“It’s great to play against the Old Firm and test yourself against the best, but before the Rangers games we’ve got St Mirren, so we’ll look forward to that game first.”