AS he tried to explain to reporters why Hearts had squandered a two goal lead against Hibernian and failed to win the opening Edinburgh derby of the season in the media room at Tynecastle on Saturday night, Cammy Devlin looked utterly bereft.
He had, though, felt even lower earlier in the week when Australia head coach Graham Arnold had telephoned to let him know he had been left out of the squad for the friendlies against England and New Zealand.
The midfielder, who had been at the World Cup in Qatar back in November, was looking forward to joining up with his countrymen again, and possibly playing in the matches at Wembley and the Gtech Community Stadium, greatly.
However, Arnold is keen to have a look at three young “train on” players – Alex Robertson of Portsmouth, Mohamed Toure of Paris and Patrick Tzbeck of Viking - during the forthcoming double header and he will not be involved.
Asked how he felt about being omitted from the Socceroos set-up, Devlin said: “Devastated. But what can you do? As a player you can only control what you can control. I feel I’ve been playing well and consistently well. The Australia coach has picked his team. But, yeah, I’m disappointed.
“He just said he wants to have a look at others - there’s three midfielders from the last camp that aren’t there and he’s called up some ones that he maybe hasn’t looked at or spent time with to know them as a player or person. He said he’s been watching me and that I’ve been doing well. But that makes it all the more gutting that I’m not there.
“You have to be resilient as a player. Football is so up and down. At 2-0 today I felt so good and happy then two minutes (Hibs forward Elie Youan levelled the match with a quickfire second half double) have made me feel so sad. That’s how it is and it’s how you bounce back as a player.”
Devlin, who performed well in the centre of the park against Nick Montgomery’s side on Saturday and ensured that Steven Naismith’s team dominated the opening hour of the cinch Premiership match, has an added incentive to maintain his current form when club football resumes after the international break.
The two-times capped Australia internationalist believes the league meetings with Celtic at Tynecastle and Rangers at Ibrox later this month will provide him with the perfect opportunity to show Arnold what he is missing ahead of their World Cup qualifiers in November.
“You have to prove him wrong,” he said. “If you feel sorry for yourself then it will only burden you. You know the type of person I am. It’s about performing for Hearts, keep playing regularly and keep the form up. I have so many areas I can still improve on. It’s about performing and making it impossible for him not to pick me.”
“The games against Celtic and Rangers are the games you want to play in. They are big games. You don’t want to be someone that hides in big games. I love the occasion, love when there’s a big crowd. I felt all the boys thrived off it on Saturday.
“They are massive games for us. It would have been lovely to go into the break with three points that would have put us third. But it’s important for me personally to have a break that I didn’t want but to have a few days to rest. Hopefully the international boys will do well and do their nations proud.”
Hearts’ players let themselves down at the weekend when they switched off and allowed Youan to restore parity. Their supporters let them know what they thought at the final whistle by booing them off the park. Devlin had no problem with their angry reaction.
“They are entitled to their opinion,” he said. “They pay their money to put us in a job. It’s up to us to go and perform. For 85 minutes we did that. Two minutes of madness means we draw the game. Expectations are to win at home in the derby.
“When you put yourself in a good position, especially 2-0 up in a derby at home, I think you should always come away with three points. Inside our changing room it feels like we’ve lost the game in terms of the disappointment with the draw. We’ve got to be so much better than that.”
