STEVE Clarke has confirmed that George Hirst, the former England Under-20 striker who has played up front for Ipswich Town in the Premier League this season, has pledged his international future to Scotland ahead of their World Cup qualifying campaign following talks last month.
Hirst - whose father David, the ex-Sheffield Wednesday forward, played three times for England back in the 1990s - is eligible to represent this country through his paternal grandfather.
Clarke spoke to the 6ft 3in 26-year-old about switching his allegiances after watching him in action earlier this season and had hoped to include him in his 23-man squad for the Nations League play-off double header against Greece at Hampden yesterday after receiving a positive response to his overtures.
He was prevented from doing so by a delay to the necessary paper work. However, he stressed that the former OH Leuven, Leicester City, Portsmouth and Blackburn Rovers man could still feature in the matches in Athens on Thursday week and Glasgow three days later.
The Scotland manager, who handed Lennon Miller of Motherwell and James Wilson of Hearts their first call-ups, has been unable to persuade the likes of Elliot Anderson, Harvey Barnes, Anthony Gordon and Tino Livramento to play for the national team in the past.
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But he is quietly confident Hirst will accept the invitation when he is finally able to be selected. “George will come if we get the paperwork through,” he said. “If we had got it through for this camp, he would have been in this squad.
“There are still club games to go before we meet up as a squad, there is always the chance of someone else getting injured. Hopefully not because we have suffered enough injuries.
“But he wants to play international football. We offer him that chance. You can never say 100 per cent, but I’ll say I’m 99 per cent convinced that as and when George is selected for the squad, he will turn up. We had our first conversation about a month ago. He comes across as a very nice person. He wants to be here.”
Clarke added: “George is someone we have had in mind for a few months. I’ve watched him recently. He is in and out of the Ipswich team, but he has played in the cup games.
“He scored against Forest (in the FA Cup last week) and I was spotted on the telly at the game. It didn’t take a genius to work out who I was there to watch because he was the only one on the pitch qualified to play for Scotland. He is a player who would help give us more depth to that position if we can do it.”
“Obviously there have been a lot of call-offs, a lot of injuries, especially in the middle to forward areas,” he said. “So I just felt it was a chance to have a look at two young boys who have caught the eye, Lennon over the last 18 months and James over the last six months.
“It is a chance to have a look at them in the squad, see how they fit in. They are two for the future, but they can also help us just now.
“I have obviously had more chance to watch Lennon. He plays with maturity beyond his years, he captains his club, which is a big thing at such a young age. He has good qualities, he can play deep in midfield or he can play higher in midfield. He has a good delivery, box-to-box he has good energy.
“Now we have to see if he can fit in among the group. I am sure he has got a big, big future in front of him and it is our job to look after him and try and bring him along. Hopefully this will be the start of it.”
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Clarke continued: “It is similar with James. He is somebody who catches your eye. He runs in behind, he looks to score goals. That is a great trait. We are always looking for goalscorers. He has got a few in the Premiership this year. He has got in the team, he has stayed in the team.
“I actually brought him into one of the camps last year. We were short of bodies and we brought a couple of young ones into the camp and James was one of them. He caught our eye just in a short training session. He has obviously caught the eye of the people at Hearts.
“He is playing week in week out. He has got good pace about him, good enthusiasm. He is another one who I think can have a big future, but for now he has to come into the squad and see how he measures up.”
Scotland will play Belarus, Greece and either Portugal or Denmark in World Cup qualifying later this year and Clarke is eager for his charges to build on their wins over Croatia and Poland in the Nations League last year and go into that campaign in a positive frame of mind.
The 61-year-old, who has been unable to select Stuart Armstrong, Ben Doak, Lyndon Dykes, Ryan Gauld and Lewis Morgan for the play-off games due to injuries, feels that involving Miller and Wilson at this early stage in their careers will help the national team to remain competitive in the seasons ahead.
“That is why you have to bring in these young players to let them feel the squad, let them feel the squad and let them see how difficult it is to play at the top level of international football. Hopefully they can take up the challenge and be the ones to go forward, no matter who is sitting in this chair.
“That is not really that important. What is important is we have a good production line of young players coming through to help us be competitive. What we don’t want is to have this little spell where we have qualified for a few tournaments and then suddenly we go another twenty years without qualifying. That would be a disaster for the country.
Clarke continued, “World Cup qualification is always a big year. Come the autumn those games are massive. We all understand how much everybody in the country wants to go to a World Cup.
“Before we get there there’s also big games. The players worked ever so hard in the Nations League section, it took us a bit of time to find our feet in the group but we finished the group really well.
“We want to build on that, stay at the top level and be competitive against the top teams. To do that we are going to have to beat a good Greece side over two games.”
