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Gethin Jones won’t allow talk of an international call-up for Australia to distract him from the job at hand with Wanderers.
Bolton’s Perth-born vice captain has been watched by the Socceroos with the intention of bringing him into the squad for the AFC Asian Cup.
Graham Arnold will select his squad later this month, gathering in Qatar at the start of January for the tournament which runs into February for those nations which reach the final stages.
Jones – who has been tracked alongside Jack Iredale - is putting the issue to one side for the time being as Wanderers continue their League One campaign at Portsmouth tonight.
Asked if he would welcome the call, the defender said: “It is a difficult one, of course, because every kid’s dream is probably to play international football but I am not looking too far into the future, just the next game, which is Portsmouth.
“It is good getting recognition and we’ll see what happens. As long as I’m playing well something might happen, but I am only concentrating on what is happening here for now.”
Jones was one of the first signings made by Ian Evatt at Wanderers, and has now played 139 times for the club – a total bettered only by Ricardo Santos in the current squad.
Having arrived on a free transfer from Carlisle United, he is delighted with the progress he and the club has made in the last few years.
“It has been a progression thing for me,” he said. “I first came through at Everton at 19-20, made my debut, after that it went downhill a little bit until I went on loan a few times.
“I had a really good one at Barnsley, and that is what really made me want to go and play league football. It didn’t work out at Fleetwood but I wanted to enjoy my football again, so I went to Carlisle knowing I was going to get game time, and from there it progressed really well and the manager wanted to bring me here.
“I have loved every minute here and I feel like I have progressed so much as a player under the manager. Getting this sort of recognition, possibly international football, I’m really proud of that. I just want to keep working hard.”
Jones feels he has evolved with the club and accepts there have been times where he has had to win over doubters in the fanbase.
“As players, the life we live now, social media, you see everything,” he said.
“I am not going to lie, there was a patch in the season where I wasn’t playing up to my standards. I know that, I just needed to work hard and I feel like I have come back to myself. I want to progress again. We do as a team too.
“We see everything, we hear everything, but it is outside noise. It is the game of football – someone sees you as a five-out-of-10, others a 10-out-of-10, every person sees it differently.
“As players we just need self-confidence and not to dwell on the past.
“I know when I come in whether I have had a good or a bad game. It’s something I love about the gaffer because if you have had a bad game he’ll pick you up on the Monday and say ‘hey that wasn’t so good but the week before you were great, so focus on that now.’
“You need to self-confidence to go again. Strikers who were not scoring at the start of the season are now getting goals again, and that is the manager getting into us and having belief in us.”
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