STUART McCall has left the door open to being part of Scotland's backroom team for the critical Euro 2016 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland in Dublin - whether he is Rangers manager or not.

While the former Motherwell boss deliberately opted out of assisting national team boss Gordon Strachan and his No 2 Mark McGhee for the March double header against Northern Ireland and Gibraltar, he remains highly regarded in the Scotland set-up, where a place has been left open to him for now. The qualifying tie, scheduled for Saturday June 13, falls a full fortnight after the date of the Premiership play-off final second leg, during the period where football professionals are often sunning themselves on a beach.

The former Motherwell manager's sole focus is on taking the Ibrox club back up to the Premiership this summer, a prospect which his fate as Rangers boss remains unalterably wedded to. Win promotion and he would be hard to shift from the Ibrox manager's office, fail to do so and his credentials for the permanent position would be far less alluring. There will be no shortage of other managers looking for work or alternative opportunities during the pre-season. While McCall will be guided by the wishes of the Ibrox board on the subject, the prospect of him appearing in the technical area at the Dublin Arena shouldn't be discounted just yet.

"No [the subject hasn't been broached] but I think there's a possibility," said McCall. "It won't clash at all. I certainly think if I wasn't going to be Rangers manager then I would like to think I would be there. If I was still Rangers manager, I don't know. I would have to discuss that. But it certainly wouldn't clash. They might need someone to come up with a corner kick!"

The last comment is a reference to McCall's training ground routine which won the day against the Republic at Celtic Park in November but the only contact with Strachan, save for the odd text or two, was a brief visit to the Scotland camp at Mar Hall in March. There will be no shortage of things to be done around Murray Park this summer, not least recruiting the bulk of an entirely new side, but then in his own mind McCall always had this summer pencilled in as the time when he would be putting his departure from Motherwell behind him and attempting to start afresh at a new club. The midweek setback at Dumfries had done little to dissuade McCall that it may well still be the case.

"I one million per cent wasn't one iota thinking this [the Rangers job] would be coming about," said McCall. "I wasn't waiting. I got to the stage before I came in here where I'd had probably five opportunities to go back into football north and south of the border. So in about February I thought I would wait until the summer and then try to get in somewhere, pre-season, where you can get your own players in and put foundations down. Then this came out of the blue. Now, I'll probably still be doing that in the summer. There's a chance I won't be here and I'll have to go and do something."

McCall had around four and a half months out of the game, spending some of his down time, as he had done following his departure from Bradford, mucking out the stables where his wife keeps the horses. The weeks in charge have passed by in a blur but there has been a stirring of his personal ambitions.

"I was doing it last week too on my day off, I was shovelling s**t," said McCall. "But since I've been here-and it has been a whirlwind-I'm enjoying it. I'm relishing it. Maybe I'm just enjoying being back in work, but at a club that means a lot to me.

"But, and I know people find this hard to believe, I've no thoughts about July or August," he added. "I'm just focused on Sunday, and then the next game and the next game. Hopefully we get in the play-offs and finish as high as we can and that leads to some big, pressurised games. That's what being a manager is all about. It is the same as when you were a player, you want to play at the top. You want to play in front of big crowds, in big games."

As for the team itself, McCall feels his side had enough of the game, even despite the 3-0 defeat at Palmerston, to refute suggestions of being back to square one. What it was, however, was a reminder of the merits of doing everything possible to avoid potential difficulty of play-off visits to the artificial surfaces at Falkirk or Dumfries. Cammy Bell and Dean Shiels weren't risked on the plastic pitch in midweek, but both are likely to return against Raith Rovers today.

While the Rangers board discover the full horror of the club's intellectual property rights deal with Mike Ashley, the fate of the Newcastle five continues to be a source of intrigue. While Haris Vuckic has stolen the limelight, Kevin Mbabu is approaching fitness and defender Remie Streete is thought to be a week away, Shane Ferguson's arrival to commence his loan spell following a knee op in October was delayed again this week by a sickness bug. McCall will assess the midfielder in training and bounce games to assess whether he has a part to play before the end of the campaign. "When he comes up I'll have a chat with him face-to-face and we'll see where he's at," said McCall. "If he comes. If he's not got another sickness bug."

For Andy Murdoch, the midweek reverse in Dumfries was another unwelcome wake-up call. The young central midfielder who has looked the part since coming into the team at the turn of the year - he scored a fine first goal of his career against today's opponents at Stark's Park, with McCall watching on as a BT Sport pundit - recalled how his call-up to first team duties was a late Christmas present from coach Gordon Durie.

"I was a bit worried about the future but then I got called back in early from my two-week Christmas break," Murdoch said. "I felt from there that I might get a chance. It's the kind of holiday you don't want - you want to be in training with the first team. But I got the call on the 28th from Jukey. He said I was needed back in early. I was happy but it was also 8am when the phone call came. He could have told me the night before!"