KYLE’S SCARE OPENS DOOR FOR POSTMAN

NO sooner had a thunderstorm gathered over Northern Ireland’s training base at Saint-Georges-de-Reneins yesterday than Kyle Lafferty gave his country its first injury scare of Euro 2016. Manager Michael O’Neill insisted that Lafferty is ‘fine’ and the Norwich City striker is expected to be fit to face Poland in Sunday’s Group C opener in Nice. But there was no disguising the concern that gripped the Northern Ireland camp as their top scorer and talisman was helped off the pitch after tweaking his groin in training. For Lafferty’s strike partner Conor Washington, on the other hand, it appears as though nothing can cast a cloud over his career at the moment. Four years ago, Washington watched Euro 2012 on television at home while juggling non-league football with St Ives in the Southern Football League with his job as a postman. He had never set foot in Northern Ireland. Washington was ready to follow his brother into the RAF until his football career suddenly took off. After helping Newport County reach the Football League, he scored 33 goals in 94 games for League One Peterborough to earn a £2.5million move QPR in January. The 24-year-old has an English mother and Scottish father but his agent alerted O’Neill to the player’s eligibility for Northern Ireland through his grandmother in Belfast. Washington was drafted into the squad in March and, after two goals in four appearances for his adopted country, he is still coming to terms with the transformation in his life. ‘I don’t pinch myself sometimes, I pinch myself all the time about where I am now,’ said Washington after training yesterday. ‘Just having an open training session today in front of hundreds of local people is a new one for me. I’ve never experienced that before but I’m relishing it. ‘It feels like a different life. It’s so surreal to think where I was four years ago but it’s also surreal for a lot of people back home to see me on TV scoring goals against international teams. ‘In 2012, I was playing part-time for St Ives and delivering post. Up at 5am and we’d be done for midday or 2pm at the latest. ‘I was turning up to some FA Vase games on a Saturday, the biggest games of my career at the time, and I literally had to run my round. I probably shouldn’t say this but I had to bring my mate in. ‘There was late post, it was probably delivered to the wrong address, parcels going missing!’