Jordan Rhodes

By Graham Barnstaple
November 15 2011

There have been a lot of positives taken from last night’s Under 21 for Scotland over Holland, but what does the result really mean.

Craig Levein, Billy Stark and large chunks of the media have been heaping praise on the Scotland Under 21 side who defeatedHollandin a Euro qualifier last night. This always makes me take a step back and think of how many will make it into the full side.

Back in 2006 the Under 19 side made the final of the World Cup inCanada, and to date of the 18 man squad only five of them have made the full squad. The only one who you could say is a regular is Darren Fletcher, the other four (Lee Wallace, Garry Kenneth, Robert Snodgrass and Graeme Dorrans) are hardly fixtures in the side.

Even when we reach a world final we have only produced one regular internationalist and five years later we still haven’t qualified for a tournament.

This has been the story of Scottish football for as long as I can remember as our under age sides regularly reach tournaments, and finals but it never seems to develop and help the full side.

Why would this be? One of the players from the 2006 squad is a good example of what happens. Mark Reynolds, was already a regular first team player at Motherwell when he travelled toCanada. He made the progression to the Under 21 side and despite being a consistent performer in the SPL he was never included in a full squad.

He may not have been fully ready at 20/21 but it would surely have helped his development if he had been part of the squad. He was never included and his career stalled at Motherwell before a transfer toSheffieldWednesday where he is not out of the picture altogether.

This is a typical waste of talent because we have no structure to move players from the Under 19s/21s to the full side. Hopefully one of the many initiatives under way at the SFA will finally find a way of doing this.