If you had told Michael McGovern a year ago that he would be Northern Ireland’s number one goalkeeper as they sealed their place at Euro 2016, his country’s first major championship for 30 years, he would have dismissed such a notion as fanciful at best.

Similarly, if you had told him that Hamilton could sit third in the Premiership with a win over Dundee at New Douglas Park today, he may have thought you were a fellow countryman who had taken a few too many libations on board during the midweek celebrations in the province.

The reliable goalkeeper though has already achieved the first part of this unlikely scenario, and now he is hell-bent on achieving part two with his club.

It’s all a long way from the days when he was warming the bench at Celtic Park and Tannadice, and McGovern wants to repay Hamilton for giving him a platform to show his talents.

"It's been an amazing week, I'm still trying to get my head around it,” he said.

“I'm just coming down now. It's been brilliant and a really positive thing to happen for the country.

"I never thought this would happen, not even twelve months ago. It's funny how football changes.

“I was at Celtic and Dundee United and hadn't played and the reason everybody kept throwing at me was because I didn't have any experience. But I went to Ross County and Falkirk and played games, really enjoyed it then stepped up to the Premiership last season. My thought process was to play as many games as possible and the more I played the more experience I got.

"It won't be hard to come back to real life this weekend. I know I need to play well for Hamilton to continue to play for Northern Ireland. I need to do well and the sole focus now is to get a good result against Dundee.

"The lads here have been brilliant - they sent me texts after the game against Greece and when I came back in on Tuesday they were all congratulating me.

"I played five out of the ten games in the qualifying which is a huge honour for me. At the start of it I was on the bench and third choice so I've come a long way. It just makes me hungry and I want to play as many games as possible.

"I think the country gets a lot of money, I'm not sure how much but it's presumably a big bonus for the FA.

“I think there's some sort of bonus for the players but I'm not certain how much it is. It's nice but it's a side issue. You'd do it for free to have the honour of the way we all felt after the game on Thursday.

“I've got high competition from big Roy and Alan Mannus who's been great for St Johnstone. So I need to perform well for Hamilton.”

McGovern and his Hamilton teammates are of course used to taking on the role of an underdog defying expectations and mixing it with the big boys.

With the quality in Martin Canning’s squad, McGovern sees no reason why his club cannot manage an achievement similar to that which he achieved with his country.

"Maybe getting into Europe or Hamilton winning a trophy would be equivalent, which is something we'd like to do,” he said.

“We're a long way off that now, though. Our first aim at the start of every season, for a club our size, the objective is to stay in the league.

“Even though we've had a good start to the season there's still a long way to go and we're not going to get carried away talking about Europe. Our aim is to get 40 points and after that we change our goals and see where we go.”

Although Scotland will not have any representation at next year's championships in France, remarkably Hamilton could have two members of their squad present, with skilful attacking midfielder Gramoz Kurtaj hoping that his form can catch the eye of the Albania head coach Gianni De Biasi.

"I'd love to see him be involved for Albania," McGovern said.

"We spoke about it before that they'd a good chance of qualifying and they're a small country so they must have some good players. I don't know too many of them but if he keeps going the way he has and keeps scoring goals he'll certainly have a case for getting involved with them."