Shamrock Rovers man Graham Burke admits he’s a long way off winning back his place in the senior Ireland squad but will not abandon hopes of getting more caps.

Burke burst onto the international scene in 2018, making his debut away to France, scoring in a home friendly win over the USA with a third cap added away to Poland, all in a five-month spell while he was a Preston player. Since his return to Ireland, and Rovers, his Ireland career has remained on hold, though he was a late call-up by Stephen Kenny to an injury-hit squad for a Nations League tie at home to Bulgaria in 2020.

Due to injury he started just 15 league games for the Hoops last season but, with a solid pre-season under his belt, he’s started both league games for Stephen Bradley’s side this term. Team-mate Neil Farrugia is seen as the Rovers player most likely to make the step-up under Kenny and Burke concedes that getting back into Kenny’s plans will be tough.

"Because the standard of players who are there, for me to try to get back in there, to even think about it, I’d have to be at the total top of my game. I’ve hardly been on the pitch in the last year in order to do that,” says Burke, his side in action at home to challengers Derry City on Friday.

“I wouldn’t have expected to get back into the squads on the back of that. I don’t expect to have more caps for Ireland. It was a privilege to even think I’d done that in my career.

“It’s difficult but I could recapture that form. Being confident in my ability, I hopefully can reach that form again. It was an unbelievable moment for me, and the family, to experience that, to score, and play against France in their last game before they went on to win the World Cup was unbelievable.

“As a player, I don’t think you give up as it’s an honour but I don’t constantly think of it. My only focus is trying to do the best I can for this club.”

The Hoops have had a less than ideal start to their title defence, two draws in two games and three red cards which leaves them with three defenders (Roberto Lopes, Lee Grace and Dan Cleary) suspended for the home clash with Derry tomorrow, but Burke is not stressed by that slow start.

"We know we have dropped points. Coming away from Sligo it was probably a good point for us as it's a tough place to go, we found it tough going to Drogheda as we've not won there for a while, the red cards don't help," he says.

“But we don't think like that, we know what went wrong in the two games, we needed to be more ruthless in the Drogheda game, more clever in not getting people sent off, take our chances when they come along as anything can happen when it's 1-0, a set play, a free kick. We know we need to be more ruthless against Drogheda, put the game to bed.

"The standards we set, how successful we have been over this spell, to have two draws and people on the outside are saying 'Rovers have had two draws'. It's nothing we are thinking of, we should have won the games but the sendings off, you come away with a point and now the test is Derry.

“Every year is the next challenge, it's going to be difficult, we know that, we have boys who have the experience to do that, we know how hard it is and it will be difficult as everyone is going to come for you. We know that and we will work extremely hard to win every game, we have the squad to try and go on and do it again, the squad is strong, the players we brought in are real high-calibre players.”