We're hungry for more says Craig Cathcart

Having tasted what tournament football is all about at Euro 2016 Cathcart said the team are hungry for more.

“For everyone there is a massive incentive ahead of the Bosnia game in October,” said the Watford man.

“For us who had a taste of it in 2016, it was an amazing experience and I’m sure everyone would say it was the highlight of their careers.

“We know how much we want to do it and how much it meant to us at the time.

“The younger lads in the squad now want to have a taste of it too and we are all pulling in the same direction and we know how important the play-offs will be because we all want to get to a major tournament again.”

Of course there has been a major change now with Ian Baraclough taking over the reins from Michael O’Neill, and Cathcart feels these two games will benefit them ahead of the game against Bosnia.

“Yeah, I think so. To be fair, I’ve been looking forward to it,” he said.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been together so for me I was looking forward to this game.

“It’s a good opportunity for us to play a couple of competitive games before the season starts. They’re both difficult matches and it’ll get all the lads ready for their clubs.

“It’s been good to meet up and the play-off is next month, so to get these two games under our belt will definitely be beneficial looking forward to that.

“It hasn’t been too much different. It’s still the same squad, same hotel, a lot of the staff have remained, so nothing major has changed.

“Obviously Ian has taken the sessions and has been getting his ideas across to us.

“The first few sessions have been good, they’ve been enjoyable and now we’ve got this game to look forward to in Romania to try and get a good result.

“We’ve known Ian for a while, he’s been in a few squads with us and taken a few sessions before so we know he is a good coach and has good ideas.

“It’s not a major change and obviously he has the experience of working with the U21s and will know which lads are ready to push to the first team and hopefully make us better.

“Nothing major has changed, but I’m sure there’ll be little changes he’ll make as the games start coming.

“It’s pretty straightforward. We have a good team spirit and we want to play with energy, we want to go and attack teams like we have done over the last few years.

“We want to play positive football and get results. That would be the key for these games.

“I think it (Nations League) can help our seeding, so the better we do in it, the more chance we have of getting a favourable group for the qualifiers.

“It will definitely give us a little bit more of a competitive edge, which I think is always helpful because the friendlies can be flat, but these games will have a competitive edge and we want to try to win them all.”

Cathcart knows they will have to keep a close eye on Rangers star Ianis Hagi tomorrow night.

“He’s one we’ll have to look out for but the staff have done their homework on their entire squad and we will know exactly what we’ll have to look out for on the night,” added the big defender.

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