Grant Hanley recalls ultimate rollercoaster ride as focus switches to Hibs

The 34-year-old centre-back played in the 3-2 defeat away to Greece but was dropped for the final Group C qualifier against Denmark at Hampden Park on Tuesday night, only to be reinstated when John Souttar picked up an injury in the warm-up.

The Scots’ thrilling 4-2 win over the Danes took them top of the table and qualified them for their first World Cup finals since 1998.

Hanley told HibsTV: “It has been a bit of a rollercoaster, to be honest. We had a disappointing result in Greece and then learned that we had been helped out with the Belarus result, and it set up a monster of a game on Tuesday night.

“I think the game speaks for itself, it was crazy – but to come out the other end with the result we wanted and to qualify for the World Cup is surreal. It is very difficult to put into words. The game in itself, the aftermath and the way people speak to you after the game is incredible.

“We’ve had so many words of congratulations and things like that. I think when you finish playing, I will probably appreciate it a bit more – as players now it is onto the next thing and performing at club level. For me personally, I went from not starting the game to getting thrown in at the last minute – so it was a roller coaster on that front.

“You go through your normal preparations; the starters and the subs warm up differently. It was towards the end of the warm-up that I got called over, and I was told that I was going to be in from the start. I had to quickly get myself up to speed – did a couple of passes, a couple of sprints and a couple of headers and I was ready to go.”

Hanley has switched his focus back to domestic football and the Premiership game against Dundee on Saturday.

He said: “Dundee have picked up some big results this season, they will be hard to play against and we know what to expect. First of all, we will need to concentrate on ourselves and focus on what we have done well recently. We got a good result before the international break, so we will be looking to build on that, especially playing at Easter Road.”