This week's Clarets on international duty

Last updated : 15 November 2014 By Tony Scholes
A 29th cap for Stephen Ward

Looking at our current players first and we've had three on full international duty in the last couple of days with Stephen Ward the only one getting onto the pitch.

He won his 29th cap in the Republic of Ireland's 1-0 defeat against Scotland last night at Celtic Park, a result that now sees both of them alongside Germany on seven points from the first four games in a group where Poland, 4-0 winners last night in Georgia, now have a three point lead.

Matt Gilks had a watching brief in this game. David Marshall played in goal with Craig Gordon taking the number 12 shirt and Gilks named as the third goalkeeper.

He wasn't the only current Burnley player to be an unused sub this week. New Zealand drew 1-1 against China yesterday in Nanchang with Leicester's Chris Wood scoring a late equaliser for the All Whites in this friendly. Cameron Howieson was an unused substitute.

Howieson will now travel with the New Zealand squad for their game against Thailand in Bangkok on Tuesday hoping to be selected for the tenth time for his country.

Now to news of former Clarets and again a reference to the Scotland v Ireland game with Steven Fletcher winning his  18th cap. He's very much part of Gordon Strachan's squad now having been exiled for some time but he has still only scored one international goal, that coming in his Hibs days back in April 2009.

Both Chris Baird (69 caps) and Kyle Lafferty (41) were in the Northern Ireland team whose 100 per cent start to the qualifying campaign came to an end with a 2-0 defeat against Romania in Bucharest. This is potentially the toughest match they will face and it has seen the Romanians go a point ahead of Northern Ireland at the top of the group.

The shock in that group was Faroe Islands beating Greece in what was their first away win for thirteen years, and there was a Burnley link to the other game in that group which was Hungary's 1-0 win over Finland in Budapest. The game saw Gabor Kiraly make his 92nd appearance for his country.

One other former Burnley player has made full international appearances this week. Dane Richards was in the Jamaica side that drew 1-1 against Martinique in Montego Bay and then beat Antigua & Barbuda at the same venue, both in the Caribbean Cup. Those games to his total of caps to 45.

The Internationals feature on Clarets Mad has now been updated to include these appearances.

That's not the end this week. On this occasion we have to also look at the under-21s, England under-21s in particular who defeated Portugal 3-1 on Thursday.

The game, as we all know, was played at Turf Moor and Danny Ings scored two of the goals. He was substituted during the second half, with Patrick Bamford coming on, but Michael Keane played the whole game and Nathaniel Chalobah was introduced as a substitute for Will Hughes during the second half.

I thought Danny had a superb game during the time he was on the pitch and if my memory serves me correctly, that's the first time I've watched three Burnley players live in one international team and the first time I've seen a Burnley player score two international goals in one game.

I'm sure the last Claret I saw score for England was Andy Kilner at youth level against Iceland at Ewood Park back in 1983, although I did see Dimitrios Papadopoulos scored for Greece at the same venue in 2001 at under-21 level. Papadopoulos was Burnley's first ever under-21 international.