Devlin aiming to continue European love affair

Cammy Devlin enjoys playing for Hearts and Europe and the gutsy player would love to help the Tynecastle club secure a place in the next stage of the UEFA Europa Conference League.

For that to happen, Devlin (pictured) and his team-mates must overturn a 2-1 deficit from the first-leg to Norwegian club Rosenborg at Tynecastle on Thursday (August 17, kick-off 19.45) in this qualfying game.

It’s a target Devlin believes they can achieve against a side who are good on the break, something Hearts have to guard against as the search for win they so desperately want.

Devlin told a press briefing at Tynecastle that the Men in Maroon must “hang in there” and play for however many minutes it takes to secure a result and the Aussie World Cup squad member said that last year’s European experience was “massive” for the Capital club and the players.

The 25-year-old from Sydney said that the good thing about these European ties is that they are held over two legs and this is an opportunity for Hearts being only 1-0 behind.

He added: “We are at home where we have had so much success in the two years I have been here. They are a good football team and they are quite good on the ball which is what we saw last week (in the first-leg in Norway) but it is up to us to take the game to them and we know that we have to score more than one goal to get through.”

He stressed: “It is about us, we need to hang in there, play to the set-up we have been given, and have faith in that and do it to the best of our ability, and we are looking forward to it.”

If it takes to the 90th minute to get what we want then “so be it” and he added: “This is not a game that will be done in 45 minutes even if we score two in the first-half, there is another 45 minutes and it is very important for everybody to know that it is a long game., however we have full confidence that we can do it.”