Josh Magennis drawing on EURO 2016 memories as inspiration towards Northern Ireland’s future goals

The striker admits looking back on Northern Ireland’s landmark EURO 2016 experience for continued inspiration - and is happy to talk to current team-mates about the life-changing rewards ahead of facing Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday in the play-off semi-final.

“It’s not a dynamic where you have lads saying ‘we’ve done it, you haven’t’...it’s more motivational,” said Magennis. “I still remember the final whistle against Greece (in 2015) and realising we had got to EURO 2016.

“So it’s more to say like ‘lads, it changes your life’...before we were a competitive Northern Ireland side, but now people will remember that team as Kings of Lyon.

“Gareth McAuley, Niall McGinn - these players will never be forgotten and will go down in Northern Ireland history, as will the team that went to France.

“It’s motivation in the sense if you can replicate those standards and that intensity, it has been proven we can get there.

“It was a fantastic experience and one hopefully we can experience again.

“Hopefully Thursday after the game we’ll be able to say ‘OK, we’ve dealt with Bosnia, it’s on to next month’ (play-off final).

“And if we do it next month...the emotions you experience will never be able to be taken away from you.

“It galvanises you as a team and no matter where we end up in life, we’ll always have that in common and it’s a strong connection we’ll always have.

“It has maybe been a squad in transition but we know what the manager expects of us now.

“More importantly, we know what we expect from ourselves and we know what can be there for us at the end of the rainbow - and that’s another major tournament.

“It’s massive, absolutely huge.

“A lot of people don’t have the chance or opportunity to go to major tournaments for their country and to do that already is massive.

“To be able to do it twice or multiple times is something you literally dreamed of as a child.

“For us as players and staff, it would be huge, but also what it managed to do for the country when we were in France, it absolutely galvanised the country.

“We know when we get it right, we’ll be competitive and there’s always a win in us.”

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