Hibs star Bowie gets 'more and more caps' encouragement as Scotland boss Clarke challenges debut boys

Scotland new boy Kieron Bowie has been encouraged to keep making his case for future international honours, with national team boss Steve Clarke insisting he hopes to see plenty of his latest recruits pick up “more and more caps” over the course of the impending World Cup campaign.

Hibs striker Bowie made his senior international debut late in yesterday’s 4-0 friendly win over Liechtenstein in Vaduz, the 22-year-old coming off the bench with just 12 minutes of the 90 remaining. Bowie, a stand-out for Scott Gemmill’s Under-21s, harbours serious ambitions to establish himself as Scotland’ first-choice No. 9.

Che Adams bagging a hat-trick and George Hirst scoring the other goal in a one-sided rout underlined the challenge faced by any forward looking to force their way into Clarke’s thinking, even allowing for the fact that no Scotland striker had scored for a year before yesterday’s thumping of the lowly Liechtensteiners. Middlesbrough’s Tommy Conway was also introduced to the game ahead of Bowie, while Lyndon Dykes is pushing for a return from injury, Hearts teenager James Wilson has already been capped - and Liverpool attacker Ben Doak has also expressed an interest in moving from the wing to a more central role.

But Bowie, who went under the knife to repair a serious hamstring injury sustained on Under-21s duty back in September, enjoyed a barnstorming second half of the season with Hibs. The former Fulham and Raith Rovers striker was rewarded with his first call-up for the end-of-season doubleheader, although he was kept on the bench in Friday night’s dismal home defeat to Iceland.

Former Hibs favourite Doig joined Bowie in earning international debut

Former Hibs fullback Josh Doig and West Ham midfielder Andy Irving, a former Hearts player, joined Bowie in making their first appearances for Scotland against opponents just five places off the bottom of the FIFA rankings yesterday. Being able to hand out so many debuts at once was, insisted Clarke, a real bonus from a game of limited relevance to the all-important qualifying campaign kicking off in September.

Insisting that he has one eye on expanding the pool of talent available to him for that series of fixtures against Denmark, Greece and Belarus, Clarke said: “It’s nice that I’ve managed to get a few more first caps onto the pitch. So it’s all about building the squad for the future. Obviously we’ve got the boys that we rely on now.

“But if you look at the final picture on the pitch, there are a lot of inexperienced internationals. Hopefully over the coming years they’ll start to pick up more and more caps.”

Former Easter Road favourite Doig was thrilled to get any kind of outing, the Sassuolo left back facing some pretty significant competition at left back in the shape of both team captain Andy Robertson AND Kieran Tierney.

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“Obviously, I've been on a lot of squads, but at the same time, it's not a bad thing,” said the 23-year-old. “It's an absolute honour just to be picked, to be playing alongside some of the guys on the pitch, world-class players.

"I'm just absolutely delighted to get on and just bursting with pride for me and my family. Obviously, in my position, you've probably got some of the best two left-backs in the world at the moment, so it can't not help me being around them and being in that environment.”

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