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Tam McManus

Josh Doig shattered Hibs one season wonderkid theory and will net club massive transfer fee - Tam McManus

Take a bow Craig Gordon - a Hearts and Scotland legend and well done on hitting the sixty five cap mark.

But let me tell you a quick story concerning a trip to Germany with the Under-21 international side and a condom incident which almost ended his career before it began.

I'll set the scene. We had Rainer Bonhof as manager and beat the Germans in Dortmund.

A Shaun Maloney winner and Bonhof was delighted, he'd beaten his fellow countrymen in their own backyard.

Our reward was to be let loose for a night. We'd moved to the top of our European Championship qualification group and spirits were high.

We found a bar, someone had bought condoms from the vending machine and placed them on people's shoulders.

it was immature, messing about and high-jinks stuff. I put a condom into big Craig's pint, it has escalated from shoulders to something more risky. We watched in horror as he had a big gulp of his pint and nearly swallowed the condom before spitting it out as we rushed to do the Heimlich manoeuvre inside the pub.

So he's managed over 60 caps for Scotland but who knows what could have happened had he had another sip of that pint.

Which brings me to Hibs.

Scotland's Under-21's haven't been a great watch recently, they were poor against Turkey last week and then they allowed a two goal lead to slip against Kazakhstan to draw 2-2.

I don't get hysterical about defeats at this level as it's all about trying to continue the development of our best young players and to try and get them into the senior team.

One shining light was Josh Doig, I thought he was excellent in both games and what people forget is that he's still only a teenager at 19. He's continued his good form at Hibs with his country and he can be the man who drives the club on for the remainder of the season at Easter Road.

Doig was one of few shining lights for Scotland U21s (SNS Group)

Josh has around 60 games under his belt for his club, that stat tells a story of its own.

He was absolutely brilliant last season and quite rightly won the Scottish Football Writers Young Player of the Year award.

Ask any top performer, it's like being a musician, that second album is also a real acid test of whether your career will hit the bum notes and fall away.

I watched him at the start of this season, there was a worry about him, there was a doubt whether he could push his career on but he's answered that question emphatically in recent months.

It may sound strange but I believe he found it a struggle to perform initially when fans were allowed back into stadiums.

He's spoken himself about not having moans and groans when he made mistakes inside fan-free Covid-19 restricted grounds and you could see it's taken a bit of time for him to adjust and began the campaign poorly.

It's strange to say the return of fans hindered him but he'd played an entire campaign in silence and now there was all the noise and groans and he struggled.

Now he's found his feet again and is flying, he's the one who has been getting the fans off of their seats.

Doig's first season as a Hibs first-team star was played to empty stands (SNS Group)

In the last six weeks he's been immense and right back to his best and showing the form he displayed last season.

Left back, left wing-back or left centre-back, no problem.

From what I've seen, I believe he can now go on and get that big move which has been spoken about.

He's shattered my fear that he would be a one season wonder. Josh has a massive future and he can be the one who can land Hibs that massive fee.

Josh is every inch the modern day defender, he's strong, quick and positive when he drives forward and he's really shown that in recent weeks in a Hibs team which has been struggling.

He's lifted the fans and his team by getting at defenders, even if it's only to win a free-kick, throw-in or a corner.

That raw kid of last season has been replaced by a boy where the sky's the limit.

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