HAVING MOVED to what they felt was a stronger league than the one in which they had previously won titles with, Linfield, Tommy Stewart and Alan Mannus look set to emerge at the top of the pile again with Shamrock Rovers tomorrow night but neither man expects the achievement, if they pull it off, to be enough to impress Northern Ireland manager Nigel Worthington.

The pair are predictably reluctant to count any chickens in relation to their current club’s prospects in Bray where Rovers need a win to be certain of lifting the title.

“The last time we played up there we drew nil-all,” observed Mannus, “and Bray could have beaten us. They beat Pat’s down there a while ago and they drew with Bohs a couple of weeks ago. So they are capable of beating us as well and we need to make sure we are ready.”

They seem rather more confident, however, that earning an international call-up is likely to require rather more than even the double that is currently still up for grabs.

“When I signed for Rovers he (Worthington) was sort of a bit disappointed with it,” said the goalkeeper who made the last of his four appearances for Northern Ireland prior to leaving the Belfast club.

“He was saying ‘well, it’s done now, we’ll deal with it’. Those were his exact words to me and I was wondering ‘well, what does that mean?’

“And then I’d played a few games here, say five or so, and I was back in the squad again and he said to me ‘have you been playing?’ and I said ‘yeah’ and I sort of thought ‘should you not be aware if I’ve been playing or not’, if you have me in your squad. So I could tell just from the way he was going on that he wasn’t too keen on players playing here.”

Mannus appeared to get further offside with the manager by turning down the chance to go on an end-of-season tour to America on the basis that it would have involved missing a key league game against Bohemians and his replacement at Linfield, Alan Blayney, who did travel, ended up being the only Irish League player in the squad for the recent European Championship game against Italy.

“He didn’t sound the happiest when I told him I was pulling out but that decision has been justified. In the end, I think the league is better here, the teams you play against are better, but what I think doesn’t seem to matter,” he said.

“He wants players to be playing in England and Scotland, maybe not even playing, it seems with some players, if you’re at a club in England or Scotland it’s good enough, so that’s the way it is.”

Stewart, who still seems taken aback by the turnaround in his fortunes since leaving Derry City at the end of last year, is similarly frustrated with the lack of recognition that Worthington has granted players in the league here.

“I’m shocked to be honest,” he said. “And I’m disappointed for Alan and Chrissie (Turner). When you see boys doing well, no matter what league you’re in, if you’re doing the business, you deserve to be called up. You can look at the strength of who we played in Europe and how we played in the league when we put a run together.

“To be honest,” he continued, “I don’t understand it. I played for Northern Ireland right through from youths to under-23 level. I got a lot of caps for the under-21s and captained them. And then to totally be banished from it is a little bit disappointing.

“Hopefully international honours will come at some point if I keep doing well for my club but my first priority is to do well for the club here.”

Tomorrow: Bray Wanderers v Shamrock Rovers; Bohemians v Dundalk.