HANLEY still has the HUNGER
Stalwart defender is closing in on a half-century of caps but is eager to make up for lost years
WALES provided the opposition when Grant Hanley made his Scotland debut in May 2011. The Welsh were also on the end of Hanley’s first international goal two years later, as the defender met a corner to head past Boaz Myhill in a World Cup qualifier at Hampden.
If good fortune does indeed come in threes, then surely the defender will round things off wonderfully by helping Steve Clarke’s team secure a place at Qatar 2022 in Cardiff next Sunday evening.
Unsurprisingly, the defender refuses to play along with that particular game.
An immunity to distraction or daydreaming is a ground level qualification for a defender, especially one who is gearing up for a game as big as the fixture that awaits Scotland this Wednesday.
Wales play the winner of what is bound to be an emotionally-charged World Cup play-off semi-final in Glasgow this midweek. Hanley won’t be getting ahead of himself.
‘If you know me, you’ll know I’m not a big believer in that kind of stuff,’ he says. ‘I like to keep things simple. My focus is on the Ukraine game.
‘I know that’s a bit of a cliche but it’s true. If you end up thinking about what is coming up, you end up getting slapped in the face.’
Sports writers are bound by no such
I feel like I have a lot of time to make up for with my country
conventions and are happy to indulge in the fairytale.
And when it comes to his own career, Hanley is not averse to throwing things forward and wondering what might be achieved.
Following on from last year’s turn at the Euros, where he emerged as arguably Scotland’s best player from the three group games against the Czech Republic, England and Croatia, he would love to make it to an even grander stage this winter.
The prospect of making it to a half-century of caps is also something the Norwich defender finds alluring.
Established as a first-choice pick for Clarke, Hanley will make his 43rd appearance for his country in Wednesday’s play-off semi-final.
Win and he will make 44 in next weekend’s final, with the subsequent Nations League fixtures against Armenia, Ireland and Ukraine giving him an opportunity to reach the big milestone before a ball is kicked in the Middle East in November.
‘I would like to get as many (caps) as I can,’ he admits. ‘Physically, I feel in a good place. I had a couple of years where I struggled with injury — but, fingers crossed, I can stay fit and keep performing at club level and whenever I come away with Scotland.
‘I feel like I have a lot of time to make up for because I didn’t play for Scotland for two or three years.’
The timeline of the 30-year-old’s international career has been far from typical. Thrown in by Craig Levein at a time when the national team was bereft of quality and experience, he was just 19 and some way short of establishing himself with Blackburn Rovers.
Even as he accumulated caps under Levein’s successor, Gordon Strachan, it felt like he was learning on the job in a functional centreback pairing with Russell Martin.
Then injury intervened, robbing him of some of the best years of his career. A £5million move to Newcastle in 2016 served only to kill Hanley’s momentum and when he moved to Norwich after an unproductive season he began to pick up knocks and strains.
Even as Clarke made it a priority to try to reintroduce the defender to his squad following his appointment in 2019, he found it impossible to get the defender back on to the pitch for his country.
And so Hanley was sitting at home under lockdown constraints when Scotland qualified for the Euros courtesy of a penalty shootout victory in Belgrade.
‘I was at a stage where I hadn’t played for Scotland for a while, so I didn’t really feel part of it. But, first and foremost, I am a fan,’ he says. ‘I grew up a Scotland fan and I always will be and obviously I know a lot of the boys who were playing that night.
‘The tension was unbelievable and I was just so proud when they got the job done.’
Qualification opened the door for Hanley’s return and he quickly slotted in as the central figure in Clarke’s newly commissioned back three — a formation designed to accommodate both captain Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney. Injury has forced Arsenal’s Tierney out of the squad for this round of games, meaning Clarke will look to Liam Cooper or Scott McKenna to fill the berth to the left of Hanley. On his right is most likely to be Scott McTominay — but if Clarke decides to use the Manchester United man in midfield, it could either be Jack Hendry or John Souttar, both of whom are relative novices.
Hanley knows the importance of experience in an international context.
‘Coming into the Scotland set-up as a youngster I was lucky,’ he continues. ‘I had a lot of good pros to learn from. Russell Martin was massive for me, Darren Fletcher and Scott Brown were also good. ‘I don’t want to leave anyone out because there were loads of lads who had been there, seen it and done it.
‘As you go through your career, very quickly it comes around that you’re one of the older lads in the squad.
‘You do have that wee bit of responsibility to help the younger ones through but it’s not something you do consciously. It just comes naturally as an experienced player.
‘And while it’s important these young boys are selected for their country for a reason, it’s because they have the quality and they have the mentality.
‘So they probably don’t need as much of an arm around the shoulder as you might think.
‘They are confident enough and mentally strong enough to step in and play in these sort of occasions.’
Since joining Norwich, Hanley has essentially learned to cope with a cycle of challenging for promotion one year and battling relegation the next.
As club captain, he took the club’s latest Premier League demotion hard but he is determined to lead their next assault on promotion next term.
Born in Dumfries yet plucked from Rangers’ youth system as a teenager, Hanley has not played a minute of domestic football north of the border.
Might he tempted home before he hangs up the boots?
‘I’ve got three years left on my contract at Norwich which will take me to 33,’ he says. ‘We’ll see what state the body is in when we get to that point.
‘Personally, I have never looked at goals or tried to tick boxes during my career. But playing at a World Cup finals is one of them.’ Sitting against the ongoing conflict that has burned since Russia’s military invasion in March, Hanley knows the bulk of the world will be watching in hope that Ukraine prevail on Wednesday.
In that regard, home advantage really will be a priceless commodity for Clarke’s team as they strive to take the non-football emotion out of the occasion.
The Scottish FA did their bit for the humanitarian effort by donating funds from a hastily arranged friendly against Poland on the original scheduled date of the play-off in March.
Unable to fulfil the fixture in spring, Oleksandr Petrakov’s team are now ready to go — and Hanley knows the greatest respect the Scottish team can pay them is to contest the game as keenly as possible.
‘Playing at the Euros was a massive achievement for me, the rest of the lads and the nation as a whole,’ he adds.
‘The next step for us all is to try and qualify for this World Cup.
‘Of course we are confident. We’ve been relatively successful for Scotland in recent times and we’ll try to use that to our advantage to get through these ties.
‘The last game was postponed and we had the friendly where there was a lot of money raised for the people in Ukraine after what happened.
‘That was the right thing to do at the time. But now the focus for us has to be on the football.
‘We will be prepared properly, as we always are, to go out and win the game.
‘Because that’s the only outcome we want.’