St Johnstone striker Rory Fallon says he would love a place in the starting line-up against anyone, let alone when his former club Aberdeen come calling this weekend.
The 31-year-old has found first team chances hard to come by since signing for the Perth club in the summer but has had an eventful few weeks of late after featuring for New Zealand in their World Cup qualifying play-off defeat to Mexico over two legs.
Back at McDiarmid Park, Fallon came on as a second-half substitute in Saturday’s Scottish Cup win over Livingston and came ever so close to adding to his solitary goal for Saints so far, striking the woodwork with a late header.
But, despite finding himself used as a bit part player at the moment, Fallon is determined to keep his head down, work hard and do his level best to earn a place in Tommy Wright’s starting XI.
Ideally, that would be against the team that released him back in May.
“I’ve been trying to get into the team from day one and that won’t change,” he said.
“The opportunities have been scarce but I get behind the boys and I am professional about it. That is the way I have played for 16 years I won’t moan.
“I will continue to work hard and stake a claim when I do come off the bench as I did at the weekend. I’d just like to start any game at the moment, never mind against my old club.
“I just want to play. Aberdeen is a good club and the fans there are long suffering.
“I’d be delighted to see them get success, but not at our expense this weekend or in the League Cup semi-final. That’s a big one for us because we want to get to the final.
“It’s great we are still in both cup competitions but we will keep striving to climb higher in the top six. Hopefully we can kick on even more.”
Despite being part of the New Zealand side which eventually lost 9-3 to Mexico on aggregate, Fallon reckons he is all the better for the experience.
He even scored the All Whites’ second goal in the second leg, contributing to the 4-2 final scoreline which ended up in Mexico’s favour.
“The better team won over the two legs, we can’t deny that,” he explained.
“But the first leg at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City killed us. There was no way back. That experience was unreal.
“The crowd was 107,000 and when I went on as a sub I felt blessed just to have a chance to play in that environment. It is such a famous stadium.
“The game was done but I still enjoyed every second of the experience and I got an assist for our goal in the 5-1 defeat and I scored in the home leg when we played a very young team. It is a time for rebuilding.
“We were basically facing a club team who work with each other every day while we were travelling from all over the world and had a couple of days to prepare. We were right up against it.
“But it was great to score at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington because I have fond memories of scoring there to help us get to the World Cup in South Africa.
“The opportunity to be involved in those two games was immense and scoring was good for the confidence.”
Scoring for New Zealand certainly has benefited Fallon in terms of confidence and he would love to add to his goals tally for St Johnstone if he gets the chance on Saturday.
Indeed, had his header against Livingston at the weekend been a few inches lower, he would have done just that.
He concluded: “I thought I had scored against Livi but the ball smashed back off the crossbar. If anything maybe I connected with the header too well, but it was a great ball in from Cuptie (Dave Mackay).
“As long as I get balls delivered like that I will score goals.”