Northern Ireland Under-21s defender Ruairi McConville is confident that opportunity knocks for Tommy Wright’s young guns to break into the first-team set-up.
Wright’s charges are hoping to round off their U21 European Championship campaign on a high with third place in Group F up for grabs when they face Luxembourg on Tuesday night.
Brighton and Hove Albion centre-back McConville, who returned to the heart of Northern Ireland’s backline following an injury absence in Saturday’s dominant 5-0 victory over their Azerbaijan counterparts at the Ballymena Showgrounds, is hoping to help the side slot in behind top two Ukraine and England which they will do with a win over Luxembourg coupled with a victory for the table-topping Ukrainians over current third-placed occupants Serbia.
The former Linfield prospect has one eye on the future too, though, and believes that if he and his team-mates continue to shine at underage level, then senior boss Michael O’Neill will suitably reward them with a first-team call-up.
“Of course, we all want to make the next step into the first-team, but the first thing we’ve got to do is perform at this age group and get the results we need,” McConville (19) told Northern Ireland official media.
“We have the chance of coming third in the group, you want to get two wins and finish the campaign on a high, and we’ll see what happens after that.
“Performing, training well and then putting the ideas in Michael’s head and some of us may be involved (in the first-team).
“You see so many young boys that we played with maybe just a year ago, they were in our Under-19s team, so it’s unbelievable seeing them get to play and see how we well they’re doing, and it just shows you that there’s opportunities there if you work hard enough and you’re good enough.”