How Arnold out-manouvered Scotland to make Boyle a Socceroo

Socceroos sensation Martin Boyle might have been lost to Scotland had Graham Arnold not been willing to - quite literally - go the extra mile to make a sales pitch to the Hibernian attacker.

Martin Boyle of Australia celebrates scoring a goal during Australia's win against and Lebanon Source: Getty Images

Arnold jetted across the globe in September to explore the green and gold talent pool, whilst just 70km away from Boyle’s Edinburgh base Scotland manager Alex McLeish picked up his phone, and not his car keys, to offer the winger a cap for the nation of his birth.

Nearly two years earlier, when Boyle - whose dad Graeme was born in Balmain - first came onto Australia’s radar, then coach Ange Postecoglou took a look at the footage and deemed him surplus to requirements.

In the light of the heavy weather Australia made of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup that, in hindsight, was probably an oversight.

Add the impact Boyle has made in two appearances to date under Arnold - two goals and an assist in his maiden start against Lebanon - and it begins to look like a glaring one.

The fanfare which has erupted around Boyle’s breakthrough for the country he’d never previously set foot in is symptomatic of a nation desperate to embrace a new goal scoring saviour.

Whether it proves premature or not, time will tell.

But none of it would have been possible without Arnold’s tenacity in pursuit of a winger/forward he believed could make a difference.

“It says something that Graham went out of his way to meet Martin in the flesh and discuss the national team situation with him,” said head of national performance Luke Casserly.

“I know how persuasive Graham can be and I know how much it meant to Martin that Graham took the time to do that.

“It shows what the personal touch can achieve and how important it is for us to spread the net as wide as possible to build relationships with these types of players.

“In that regard, it helps a lot to have Graham’s assistant Rene Meulensteen based in the UK, and our chief scout Ante Milicic in Croatia.”

It took an approach from Boyle’s UK-based representative to FFA to ultimately alert Casserly to the winger’s eligibility for Australia.

Whilst FFA keeps tabs on any Australian-born players, or those who’ve played here, they do not have tentacles into the individual ancestries of an estimated 150,000 UK residents believed to be eligible for Australian citizenship.

Casserly wonders how “many more Boyles might be out there”, and is looking at possible ways to refine Australia’s methods of mining for talent on foreign fields.

The Scottish FA, for example, have written to every football academy in the UK to delve into the ancestry of each and every player.

Though, as shown in the Boyle case, they might need to follow that up with more than just a phone call next time.

Boyle, who counts fellow Socceroos Mark Milligan and Jamie Maclaren as teammates at Easter Road, has netted four four goals and conjured three assists for his club in 11 appearances this season.

The suspicion is that with the AFC Asian Cup looming in January, the journey is just beginning for his country of choice.