International week is done and dusted with for another month.

It’s not great for managers to be without players for nearly two weeks. As a manager you can’t really work on anything as key players are missing.

However, it’s part and parcel of the game and something they have to accept.

I loved going away to represent my country. It was the biggest honour you could have as a player.

Back in those days (makes me sound as if I’m 80 years old) we would meet up on the Sunday night at the team hotel knowing that we would only have a game on the Wednesday night, soon returning for training at our respective clubs on Thursday morning, so you would miss only three days of training.

These days with the double-headers, players will be away for at least 10 days which isn’t ideal for the club or the player, to be fair.

I am a proud Welshman and the two performances that I witnessed against Montenegro and England left me delighted with the way the group of players performed.

The level of performance demonstrated that as a footballing nation this young crop of players has a great deal of potential, which could lead to bigger and better things in the future with development and experience.

Both Norwich lads played a big part in both games and although Andrew Crofts had only about 20 minutes against Montenegro, he played the full 90 against England. And what a performance he gave.

He was full of energy, strength and determination. I worked with Andrew when I moved to Gillingham and he was a pleasure to work with.

He is a model professional with one of the best attitudes I’ve ever seen.

Big Steve Morison started against Montenegro and was outstanding in the first half and thoroughly deserved his first goal for Wales.

He led the line on his own superbly causing no end of problems for the two Montenegro centre-backs.

It was harder for him on Tuesday against Cahill and Terry, two strong and experienced defenders.

But to his credit he kept going until the luckless ex-Canary Robert Earnshaw took his place! Both Steve and Crofty have big parts to play in a Welsh shirt in the future.