Ryan Jack’s the lad for Scots U-21s against Dutch

SHOULD Scotland’s under-21s have any doubt about their ability to beat their Dutch counterparts, they need look no further than their team-mate Ryan Jack.

Ryan Jack trains yesterday ahead of Scotland U21s trip to Nijmegen to face the Netherlands. Picture: SNS

The Aberdeen midfielder was a member of the team that beat the Netherlands in the previous Uefa Under-21s Championship qualifying campaign, at the same stadium in Nijmegen where this qualifier will be played tomorrow night.

And should the squad need any further reassurance after that demoralising 6-0 defeat by England in their last outing, Jack is again the man to turn to.

The only player to be given pass marks from that friendly by coach Billy Stark, the 21-year-old is sure the young Scots can learn from the harsh lessons of that match – and equally certain that they can repeat their shock victory against the Dutch.

“We went over last year and I think they underestimated us a bit,” Jack said yesterday. “We showed we believed in ourselves and we could get the result, and I don’t see why it can’t happen again.

“They’ll maybe look twice and know we can pass the ball and we can play well as a team. They won’t take it lightly and it’ll be a tough test.

“We’d been on quite a good run as a group, we’d been scoring a lot of goals and we had the belief. Everything went for us on the night. We believed in ourselves and it happened.”

The reverse was true against the English, when nothing went right for Scotland. While not denying the quality of the players he came up against that night, Jack insisted there was a lot he and his colleagues could do to ensure such a low level of performance does not recur.

“It was a difficult night. I’ve watched it back and obviously it was disappointing,” he added. “There’s nothing we can do now. It was a friendly game and the next game is the most important one as there are three points to play for.

“They had a really good squad and really good players, but we never really gave ourselves a chance to do as well as we could have by the way we started the game. They got the early goals. It was a bit of both,

“You’d rather lose a friendly than a competitive match where there are points to play for. You obviously don’t want to lose any game, you want to go into every game and come out as a winner, but it wasn’t to be that night. But this is the most important one now as there’s points to play for.”

Having beaten Luxembourg in their only game to date, Scotland are joint top of Group 3 with Slovakia, although both the Netherlands and Georgia have yet to open their campaigns.

Stark is well aware that this match will be a tough one, but believes Jack can help convince his team-mates that an away win is possible.

“Ryan Jack’s tasted that and you hope he’s able to spread the message,” the coach said. “He was our most accomplished performer against England. Having watched it again, he did a really good job for us in difficult circumstances, so he can take great comfort from that and his form with Aberdeen.

“I said to [the squad] that they shouldn’t hide from a result like that. The first thing we do when we get together is to go over the last game. We picked the pieces, whether it was good or bad, and we try to improve on the negative and accentuate the positives. In watching it again we actually produced some decent possession football, which we had to do.

“I have to congratulate England, because no other team has put us under so much pressure high up the park. If you’re the Holland coach, if he’s watched that game, you can imagine what he’ll try and do. A lot of the time they do that anyway. We have to defend as best we can and still threaten them.” John Herron of Celtic and Mark Beck of Carlisle have been drafted into the squad, replacing the injured Stuart Bannigan and Danny Handling of Hibernian. “John’s had one or two injuries, but he’s come through the ranks with the youth teams,” Stark said of Herron.

“It’s the first opportunity I’ve had to bring him in and he’s looked good in training. He’s delighted to be here. He’s a midfielder with an eye for goal. He scores goals and gets chances in every game because he thinks about it. It doesn’t just happen for him. We need a goal threat like that in the team.

“Mark’s an old-fashioned English-type striker who gives us something a bit different. Normally with big boys like that you think they don’t have the best touch, but he’s got a decent feel for bringing people into play and he has a goalscorer’s streak in him.

“He always seems to get a goal and you can’t have enough of guys like that.”