FARRELL: STILL NO SCOTLAND HONOURS FOR ME

WALTER SMITH chose to overlook me for his Scotland squad once again for tomorrow's game against the Faroe Island's.

Don't get me wrong, I've long since given up the anxious wait to check Ceefax to find out if my country needs me.

But missing out on pulling on the dark blue jersey had its positives for us at St Mirren with the manager giving us a few days off this week.

One of the biggest factors in our club's progress over the last year has been the team bonding exercises which have created a strong dressing room.

A few days ago we all hit the town to take the chance of having a few beers and a laugh and, boy, did we laugh.

On behalf of the rest of the players, I would like to thank our striker Mark Corcoran for providing the entertainment by wearing the most ridiculous red, skintight leather jacket. It was straight off Michael Jackson's clothes line.

He may have thought he was a Thriller when we hit the dancing but he'd have been better off being the Man in the Mirror before he came out so he would have realised how much of a fashion victim he looked.

Mark claims to have a girlfriend. If that's true -and we have our doubts -she should be giving him better advice on his dress sense.

In one way, it was great to get out with all the boys and get away from football for a few days after getting off to a decent start to the season.

But our 3-1 defeat against Dundee United was the biggest disappointment we've had since our SPL campaign kicked off and it would have been good to have a game straight away to get it out of our system.

Too many of us turned in poor performances and we need to realise that making mistakes at the back will be costly at this level.

We're learning with every game we play that cheap errors will be punished much more severely in the SPL than they were in the First Division.

Our next game is against Hearts at Tynecastle and it's one I'm looking forward to as it's one of the few grounds in Scotland I've never played at.

I've been told it's a brilliant venue as the fans are on top of you and it makes for an excellent atmosphere so I can't wait to find out for myself.

Hearts will be another tough test for us as they are flying at the moment but we won't travel to Edinburgh with any fear.

Nobody at this club would approach any game without the belief we can earn a result so we are confident of taking something from them.

It's going to be a difficult season for us but we were never under any illusion it would be anything else.

Even when we picked up some positive results in our opening fixtures we weren't getting carried away.

It's going to be a battle for us and there will be good and bad days along the way so we need to make sure we bring in as many points as we can as quickly as possible.

We are back training this morning, then we'll be watching the Scotland game tomorrow and I'm sure we will get the result we're looking for.

Young Saints players Kirk Broadfoot and Simon Lappin could be candidates for senior Scotland call-ups in the coming years and it's a great incentive for them.

For me though, I think it's a case of don't call us, we'll call you.

Taken from the Daily Record