Devastated Hearts ace Cammy Devlin left reeling by Australia snub as he laments 'five minutes of madness'

The normally chirpy Hearts midfielder Cammy Devlin had double cause to be downbeat on Saturday evening. This has been a week to forget for the Australian.

From a club perspective, he and his Hearts team-mates let a two-goal lead slip in the Edinburgh derby against Hibs after being dominant for the first hour of proceedings at Tynecastle. And from a country perspective, the 25-year-old from Sydney has had to deal with the surprise omission from the Socceroos squad to face England on Friday. Devlin has been a regular in manager Graham Arnold’s selections of late, making the snub hard to take.

Devlin fared well in his return to the Hearts starting XI after a bout of illness ruled him out of the previous match, a 1-0 win in Dingwall. He was able to play 72 minutes, by which point Hibs had cancelled out a first-half wonder strike from Alan Forrest and a Christian Doidge own goal with two strikes from Elie Youan. But there was a feeling of regret within the Hearts camp about letting their visitors off the hook.

"When you put yourself in a position, especially 2-0 up in a derby at home, I think you should always come away with three points,” lamented Devlin. “Inside our changing room it feels like we’ve lost the game in terms of the disappointment with the draw. But at the same time we’ve got to be so much better than that. Our coaches bang on about discipline and big moments in big games and it’s so disappointing we’ve not won.

Devlin has been capped twice by Australia but will not be able to add to that tally during the upcoming international break.

“It’s just five minutes of madness. Probably two minutes. That’s what happens. We felt in good shape. Even at 0-0 we were on top then Alan scores a wordly and we settled into the game even more. I felt we were dominant and creating chances. Then 2-0 up in any game you should always win. It’s just so disappointing.”

Devlin will have to stew over the derby rather than put it to one side with his national team. Australia are at Wembley on Friday to take on England in a glamour friendly before taking on New Zealand at Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium four days later. The pain of not being with his Socceroo pals was etched over the midfielder’s face.

“I’m devastated,” Devlin, who has been capped twice by Australia, admitted. “What can you do? Graham Arnold called me this week and explained his reasons. As a player you can only control what you can control. I feel I’ve been playing well and consistently well. As Australia coach he’s picked his team but, yeah, I’m disappointed.

“He [Arnold] just said he wants to have a look at others – there’s three midfielders from the last camp that aren’t there and he’s called up some ones that he maybe hasn’t looked at or spent time with to know them as a player or person. He said he’s been watching me and that I’ve been doing well but that makes it all the more gutting that I’m not there. You have to be resilient as a player. Football is so up and down. At 2-0 I felt so good and happy then two minutes have made me feel so sad. That’s how it is and it’s how you bounce back as a player.”