Neilson urged to push on for more caps by McGlynn

ROBBIE NEILSON helped Hearts break the barrier of 100 capped players in Ukraine last night, with the club management now challenging him to remain a fixture in Walter Smith's Scotland squad.

Whilst on-loan Lithuanian midfielder Marius Zaliukas was appearing in a friendly for his country against Kuwait - his first cap as a Tynecastle player - Neilson was attempting to shackle world superstar Andriy Shevchenko in Kiev on his international debut.

Mauricio Pinilla became the 99th player to be capped whilst playing for Hearts when he appeared for Chile in a 3-2 friendly win over Peru at the weekend, but Valdas Ivanauskas and John McGlynn are now anticipating a long international career for Neilson after he delivered an assured performance despite Scotland suffering a 2-0 defeat against Ukraine.

"It's a great honour for him and for the club," said assistant coach John McGlynn. "That fact will always remain in history that he was the 100th and as a club we want to help more lads get involved in international football.

"Robbie has to take his chance and cement his involvement in the Scotland team now. Hopefully he's done his chances a lot of good and made Walter Smith think seriously about him when he comes to picking his next team. That's what Robbie should be looking to do - make sure he's at the front of Walter's mind and give him a problem in the right-back area.

"The choice would seem to be between Christian Dailly and Robbie. It's up to Robbie to maintain his club level from now until March when the next qualifiers are, although I think there might be a friendly with the Republic of Ireland before then.

"I thought Robbie acquitted himself very well and he can be happy with his performance. It's just unfortunate that on the night we came up against a very strong team. It would have been nice for Robbie to have won on his debut.

"He put a really good ball in for Kenny Miller and if Kenny scores with that header it's a different game."

Deividas Cesnauskis and Saulius Mikoliunas were excused from the journey to Kuwait with Lithuania and returned to Edinburgh at the start of the week.

Takis Fyssas played the full 90 minutes for Greece as they destroyed Bosnia-Herzegovina 4-0 in Zenica, although Mirsad Beslija was not involved as he has been left out of the Bosnian squad.

Pinilla played again for Chile in the second leg of their friendly double header against the Peruvians in Tacna. Reinaldo Navia scored in the 25th minute to secure a 1-0 victory for the Chileans, allowing them to do the double over their opponents.

In a change to Hearts fixtures, the club will now play Dunfermline Athletic on Tuesday January 2, 2007 at 3pm. The match has been rescheduled to ensure that Hearts and Dunfermline both have two clear days between matches during the Christmas period. Hearts play Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Saturday December 30 at 3pm.

Meanwhile, the club has revealed that the closing date for supporters' ticket applications for next month's CIS Cup match with Hibernian is Saturday at 2pm.

Taken from the Scotsman