The 30-year-old has endured an injury-hit 18 months but the last few weeks could not have gone much better for the versatile player.<\/p>\n
McMenamin has started in St Mirren’s three consecutive victories, including the Premier Sports Cup final win over Celtic, after a calf injury disrupted his progress early in the season.<\/p>\n
The former Glentoran attacker only started five games in the middle of last season after being troubled by Achilles and knee injuries.<\/p>\n
He last featured for Northern Ireland in a friendly defeat by Spain in June 2024 but he is motivated to be back in the squad ahead of the play-off semi-final in Bergamo on March 26.<\/p>\n
“If I’m playing regularly here and doing well here then that’s all that I can do,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Obviously I’ve had a lot of injuries the last couple of years, but the pinnacle for any footballer is to play for their country and I’m no different.<\/p>\n
“That would be the main goal for me heading into the next few weeks, to try and cement a seat on that plane for Italy. It’ll be obviously a really tough match, but it’s one that I think we can go and win.”<\/p>\n
McMenamin, who has nine caps, has not been forgotten by Michael O’Neill and his staff.<\/p>\n
“All the staff at Northern Ireland, as soon as the final whistle went last week, I got back to my phone and they were congratulating me and wishing the team and everyone all the best,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s such a close-knit group when we’re away with Northern Ireland and we all still stay in contact even when we’re not away together.<\/p>\n
“I think that shows in the results we’ve had and that’s credit to Michael for what he’s built over the last couple of years because we’re a really tight-knit unit and hopefully come March we’ll be ready to go.”<\/p>\n
McMenamin’s return to the Saints team has come with the help of his versatility after discussing a move to wing-back with manager Stephen Robinson, who was O’Neill’s assistant during his first spell in charge of Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
“The gaffer obviously likes his shape and it’s up to us players to fit into that shape and that’s something that we spoke about,” McMenamin said.<\/p>\n
“But that comes from building trust by my performances in positions when you get the chances.<\/p>\n
“Since I came here, the gaffer’s played me there a few times and I was obviously a bit naive to the whole position. It was new to me. But the more you play it and obviously being out on the training pitch with the coaches, they work on certain things in the defensive side of it and the attacking side of it.<\/p>\n
“Gradually I’m getting better at that and that comes with playing games.<\/p>\n
“I enjoy playing football and wherever that may be, wherever the gaffer thinks that’s best, that’s up to him and as long as I’m playing I’ll be happy.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 30-year-old has endured an injury-hit 18 months but the last few weeks could not have gone much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[31133,8543,1144,8538,16,15,1514],"class_list":{"0":"post-657423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-michael-oneill","9":"tag-national-stadium-at-windsor-park","10":"tag-northern-ireland","11":"tag-northern-ireland-football-team","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-world-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115790457910533342","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}