Cammy Devlin wants to celebrate the greatest moment of his footballing career tonight - by making amends for the worst.
The jubilant Jambo was on top of the world on Monday after receiving a phone call from Australia manager Graham Arnold confirming his spot for Qatar. Devlin broke down in tears after receiving news and admits the 15-minute wait to discover his World Cup fate after Arnold had teed him up with a text was the longest of his life.
But the tenacious midfielder won’t be hanging around against Rangers this evening as he looks to make amends for the red card that dropped his Hearts team mates in the mire in last month’s 4-0 defeat to the Ibrox outfit. Devlin admits that “silly, silly” tackle caused him sleepless nights. From that gut-wrenching low to the stomach churning high of a place in the Socceroos squad, it’s been a month-long rollercoaster of emotion for the 24-year-old. And he said: “It’s been a nerve wracking couple of weeks.
“The Australia manager sent me a message on Monday around lunch time saying ‘can I call you in 15 minutes?’ It was the longest 15 minutes of my life!
“I was sitting staring at my phone on my couch. You literally have no idea what he’s going to say.
“Then he called back and said: ‘I’m just wondering what you’re up to in the next couple of weeks?’
"I told him: ‘it depends what you tell me right now!’
“That’s when he broke the news and it’s one of the best feelings I’ve had in my life. It’s a dream come true.
“My girlfriend was at my place but I told her to get out the room - I wanted to be on my own for the call! But she had my parents on FaceTime and was probably looking through the glass to see my reaction.
“I don’t cry often but if there’s one time in your life that you probably can share a bit of emotion then it’s getting called up for a World Cup. I couldn’t control myself. I was jumping around the gaff, so happy.
“Everyone in the block of apartments would have known. The video of how I celebrated the win over Motherwell at the weekend - it was a similar scene in my living room on Monday.
“My mum always says your gut feeling is normally right but my guts were swinging round in circles! But in all honesty my gut feeling was that I feel I deserve a chance like this.
“I went to the Olympics last year and of the three games I was sat in the grandstand for two and I got the last seven minutes of the third when we were out of the tournament. I went into that as a shadow player to now, 15 months later, being named in the 26 for the World Cup is a whole different kettle of fish.
“The manager told me I deserved it, that I had earned it with my performances at club level, he could see a different player when I went into camp just over a month ago. I came off the bench against New Zealand and he singled out the Celtic game and said I did really well in that.
“He said: ‘Your performances made me pick you - now get yourself over here and get stuck in’.”
Devlin is heading to Qatar despite having won just one cap for his country. He’s one of three Hearts stars - dubbed the Jamboroos - included in the Australia squad alongside Nat Atkinson and Kye Rowles.
And he said: “For all three of us to go is massive. I’m so grateful to Hearts for the opportunity.
“All three of us live in the same block of apartments. I got the first call and you don’t want to text the others in case they’ve had bad news then you feel like a d***head. When I found out they were both in it was such a relief too.”
The Jambos trio fly out to Qatar on Sunday, 24 hours after facing Livingston at Tynecastle. But there’s the small matter of a trip to Ibrox this evening first.
And Devlin has a point to prove - after the first half red card for a rash lunge on Rabbi Matondo that ended his side’s hopes against Rangers last time out. He said: “The last Rangers game was probably the lowest point of my career. I have never felt like that before.
“It was a silly, silly thing on my behalf that I’d like to show I have learned from. And this is a great chance to go to their place and go there as a team and get a result.
“I watched it back about 500 times. It kept me up for too many nights.
“The way I play is aggressive and tenacious and you are going to miss tackles, but looking back it’s a learning curve. I’ve come from too far away and stupidly gone for the ball.
“I’m someone who doesn’t want to change my game because that’s who I am, but at the same time if I do that I’m not going to do very well. That’s the way I play all the time, if I see the ball I am going to go and chase it and try and win it back.
“I saw it, and the way I went in for it is the way I do all the time. But he’s put his foot down and I have stepped on it with too much force and it’s a red card.
“I spoke to the gaffer and apologised and I said sorry to the whole team as well because I let them down. I just want to repay the players and the staff with good performances.
“Last year we went there and got a result, the next time we went there we got smashed, so we want to repay that. And on a personal note I want to go through there and play as well as I can.”
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