THE good news is that Robert Snodgrass has better things to do with his international weeks than attending Scotland's make-or-break Euro 2016 clincher against Poland. Throughout the fourteen months he has been sidelined with the dislocated kneecap sustained on his competitive debut for Hull City this 28-year-old has become an extended member of the Tartan Army but while his old Scotland pals go through their paces at Mar Hall, this week he has been busy doing some gruelling double and triple sessions of his own. The chance to participate in this week's double header with the Poles and Gibraltar might have come too soon for him, but all going well Snodgrass might even be playing first-team football with his club by the time any potential play-off ties tick around.

"I am still about three or four weeks away from getting back involved in regular training, although they have been changing the plan week on week with how well I have been progressing," Snodgrass told Herald Sport. "They are actually quite optimistic about putting me in with the first team in the next four or weeks or so.

"Of course there were always possibilities, people telling you these games are coming up or those games are coming up," he added. "But in the grand scheme of things, it is your health, and whether it is day by day, or week by week, you just need to keep ticking off the boxes."

As traumatic as Scotland's journey to reach their first major finals since 1998 has been for all involved, Snodgrass realised pretty quickly he had a bigger battle on his hands. "As soon as a few months go by with the injury, you are a realist, you understand the situation," he said. "I was a fan like everybody else, even before I got called up for Scotland. So for me it has just been a case of coming up to support the lads, soak up the atmosphere, and be part of the crowd if you can't be on the park.

"Of course from a personal point of view it is disappointing not to be out there, but an injury as severe as this has finished people's careers and I am just glad I have got a smile on my face," he added. "I am approaching each day of rehab the best I can, working crazy hours to get to the stage where I am now, where I feel sharp, strong and ready to go back into a Hull side which is going to be fighting at the top of the table. If the Scotland manager eventually comes calling again then great. He is always asking how I am."

When the former Livingston, Leeds United and Norwich man played his last game, he was a big name £6m signing at a Hull City side aiming to take on the best in the Barclays Premier League. Now the Tigers are stationed in the Championship, albeit in fifth place, as they aim to return to the top flight at the first time of asking. He, Allan McGregor and Andy Robertson recently had another Scot to welcome to the ranks in the form of Shaun Maloney.

"With my rehab we had to slow things right down," he said. "There was relegation, people coming and going, the manager [Steve Bruce] didn't know his position at the start of the season and there were so many different things. But all these things were irrelevant for Robert Snodgrass. I had to just focus on my rehab and that was it basically."

Scotland's fortunes have been only marginally less turbulent. While there was hubris earlier in the campaign, there is suddenly a fatalism about the national team's chances of making it out of Group D, mainly borne of one hugely disappointing night in Tbilisi. Snodgrass exhibits the same positive outlook which has driven him through 14 months of frustration.

"Listen the last couple of results have put a bit of a dampener on the campaign but I think we have made massive leaps forward," he said. "People can sit there and say it is the same old story with Scotland but this is the toughest group we could have got basically and I think we have done really well. Georgia I think is the only disappointing result in the whole campaign really.

"When have we ever been favourites?" he added. "We are always underdogs, we have always been that type of team. There is still a chance for us to do it."

The blueprint for the kind of performance required is the 2-0 win against Croatia at Hampden in October 2013. Like Poland, the Croats arrived in Glasgow well warned about what Scotland could do, with one world class player [Luka Modric] and countless other dangers. Snodgrass scored the opener as they left with their tails between their legs.

"I actually spoke to [Nikica] Jelavic and asked him how he approached that game against us," said Snodgrass. "He said that by the second game against us they knew they had to turn up and be ready to produce, but in fact the game at Hampden was a lot more convincing than the match in Croatia. We absolutely battered them. So if we can produce that kind of performance again it is definitely possible."

Whatever happens, Snodgrass for one is convinced that Strachan should be retained. "It would be crazy if people were thinking Gordon should leave," he said. "Surely they aren't. There is only one man who can take the nation forward."