Grant Hanley is refusing to dwell on a sour spell at Newcastle United after grabbing his Norwich City lifeline to re-ignite his career - for club and now country.
Hanley’s impressive form for the Canaries since an early season switch have earned him a call up to Alex McLeish’s first Scotland squad for upcoming friendlies against Costa Rica and Hungary.
The 26-year-old saw his career stall on Tyneside, after a big-money move from Blackburn, where he made only five league starts in a 13-month stint in the north-east.
“I’ve no regrets about joining Newcastle when I look back on it now,” he said. “You make your decisions and you live by them. It never worked out for me, I didn’t play as much as I would have liked to.
“These things happen in football and it’s just important that you learn from those kind of experiences. Then you move on and make yourself better for it.
“Personally, I feel good at the moment because I’m back playing regularly again at club level.
“If you are playing for your club, you are obviously going to have a better chance of playing at international level.
“I was left out of the last squad, which I was gutted about.
“But I could totally understand why. Now I’m just glad to be back and it’s up to me to train well and show the manager what I can do.”
Hanley aims to play a major part in helping reviving his country’s fortunes as they look to bounce back from missing out on the World Cup.
“There are a lot of new faces. The squad is different with a new manager. It’s the start of the build-up to a new campaign and we have to take it that way,” he said, speaking to the Scotsman. “We have these first couple of friendly games for everyone to get to know each other and for the new manager to put his ideas across.
“The boys are just excited to get started now.
“It’s another chance for us, it’s a new campaign.
“It’s a great chance for us to try to get it right this time. “There’s no magic spell, it’s not about just changing one thing which will suddenly make us start winning games.
“It’s up to the players. The new manager will tell us what he expects from us and it’s up to the players to do that on the park.”