Lewis glad to get the break
Wednesday, 8th Dec 2021Three consecutive starts cap it all for Dunfermline’s Northern Ireland under 21 internationalist
Injuries to an arm and a leg cost rugby potential stars of the future but rugby’s loss turned out to be football’s gain. The breaks caused Lewis McCann and his older brother Ali to switch from the oval ball to round ball and their successes have both been rewarded at international level. Lewis followed his brother Ali into the Northern Ireland U21 side and Ali has gone on to earn 8 full caps since making his debut against Austria in November 2020.
Born in Edinburgh, Ali and Lewis McCann and their brother Ross who represented Team GB in sevens rugby in Dubai, were born and raised in Scotland to a Northern Irish father and an English mother.
Both Ali and Lewis came through the Hutchison Vale club in Edinburgh but while Ali joined St Johnstone, Lewis went to Hearts and then Fife Elite.
This week Lewis received delivery of his under 21 international cap for representing Northern Ireland in the UEFA U21 European Championship matches against Malta, Finland and Denmark in 2019. The 20 year striker whose grandfather, Jack McCann, also represented his country at youth level claimed that he would probably give it to his father for his office:-
“He will be well proud of that. My grandad has got one as well, so along with my brother’s, he will have a wee collection of them now. Three in the family is not bad. My grandad is from Portadown, my dad is from Portadown and left to come over here. My mum is English so we are half Irish and half English.
“There are photos of me as a six year old wearing my grandad’s cap, I might have to recreate that photo. He was a no nonsense centre half and he used to tell me stories about that.”
Lewis’ roots in County Armagh are important to him and he stressed:
“It is not a slither of heritage, my dad is from Northern Ireland. It is not just another football top to put on, you feel proud wearing it and making him feel proud as well.”
Ali is older than Lewis by 18 months and given Ali’s previous call up for Northern Ireland it really shouldn’t have been a surprise to Lewis when he too was called up to play for the Province. He won his first of six under 19 caps on 5th September 2018 against Slovakia:-
“I didn’t even realise that I was on the radar for any international team. I hadn’t broken into the first team at that point, I was still playing reserve team football so it was a shock when it came in. Obviously they were first in so I thought my dad would be happy with that, so I’ll just play for them.”
Other brother Ross has been capped for Scotland’s rugby sevens and some say Ali McCann should have been capped for Scotland before Northern Ireland got to him. Lewis continued:-
“I don’t really speak to him about decisions like that, we are both in the system now, he can’t change and I doubt if I would change to be honest. I have no idea why Scotland didn’t go for Ali because he was flying even before he got his first full cap. At the end of the day it is their loss.”
The McCann brothers played rugby at the capital’s Royal High School where it was the dominant sporting activity but injuries had a dramatic effect on their priorities. Lewis explained how he played full back but at the age of 14 broke his leg on the rugby field:-
“When I was 14, I broke my leg playing rugby. Some big boy fell on my leg so I felt that was not for me, I called it a day after that, it was a double fracture leg break. Ali broke his arm at exactly the same time playing rugby as well.
“We had the same surgeon one week after the other, he must have wondered what our parents were doing to us. My brother broke his wrist and if you watch him running you can see he holds it out a bit because he has metal plates in his arm.
“My mum was in shock because my parents were away at the time, they got one call one week saying ‘Ali has hurt his arm’ and next week one saying ‘Lewis has hurt his leg’.
“Looking back on that, in a way I am glad that it happened because I was at an age where I was deciding whether to play football or rugby. The football was starting to get serious but I did enjoy rugby at the time.
“Secretly my eyes were always set on football but my dad is a big rugby player and he still plays but he didn’t force anything on us. He let us get on with whichever sport we wanted to do.”
First team football will enhance Lewis’ chances of getting back into international reckoning and having so far started every game under the new manager, John Hughes, he is hoping that he can firstly reward the boss’ faith in him and produce for Dunfermline:-
“At the end of the day my focus is on Dunfermline, the rest is a bonus - if it comes, it comes. I am not really in need of that happening right now because we need to focus on the club right now.
“That is my first three games in a row and hopefully it continues. It is good when a new gaffer comes in and you go in straight away. The Ayr game was a good game for him to be in charge and also at Inverness as well.”
Lewis maintains that it is a relief to eventually be played in the striking role he had played through the youth set up:-
“Initially I was just happy to be out on the pitch it didn’t really matter what position you were in. I wasn’t that comfortable playing out on the wing on either side. I do prefer playing down the middle and being a bit more physical than being out wide where you have got to take people on one on one, go backwards and forwards and defend. Upfront you can just chill and be hard to play against by using your size and using your strength. You make it a dog fight really.”
Hughes has told Lewis that with one upfront and the two wide players, he wants him to stay up top and leave a big pocket for others to play in:-
“He wants me to be an out-ball, be hard to play against and if the ball comes up just do whatever you can. If you can’t get it make sure the opponent doesn’t get it.
“It is good though he doesn’t fill your head with too much information that makes you run about the pitch thinking ‘I got no idea what I am doing here’, his football intelligence is really good. He tells you what to do and what we wants. He will tell you if you are not doing it!
“He knows what he wants and if it is not that, he doesn’t like it. His football knowledge is so good and he will tell you everything.”
Lewis is sure that John Hughes will be a boost to both his and the team’s development:-
“You can see that our performances have been better although after going on the up we have come back down a bit. I feel all in all our performances have been so much better, except for Saturday perhaps.
“I feel that he can bring my game on so much more just telling me to go out and ‘be you, I know that you can do it. Just prove to everyone else that you can do it’. I feel that is good, it is a massive weight off my shoulders. I can be myself and if I make a mistake he is not bothered. He always says that if we make mistakes then he will take the blame for it. All he wants is us to work hard and put the effort in. I feel like that is really good.
“It is so much easier like that because you are not running about thinking I am doing this wrong, I need to be there. Being you is good enough for him, just work hard and if you are being lazy you will come off. He is no nonsense and I do like that.”
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