Billy Stark's business card must be A4 in size. Manager of the Scotland Under-21 side, national coach to the Scottish FA�s youth teams, and father figure to Scotland�s emerging, but precocious, talent.

Billy Stark's business card must be A4 in size. Manager of the Scotland Under-21 side, national coach to the Scottish FA's youth teams, and father figure to Scotland's emerging, but precocious, talent.

All fall under his remit.

The latter role cannot be underplayed. Players with little senior experience enter the Under-21 set-up as wide-eyed teenagers and depart as confident young men.

Tuesday night's 3-1 defeat to Northern Ireland represented the start of a fresh cycle. Stark gave debuts to 10 players after enjoying little time to mould them into a cohesive unit. The flock congregated for the first time on Sunday and trained on Monday and Tuesday. It was no surprise that a hastily conceived defence, containing four debutants, lost three avoidable goals.

There will be little time to work on improvements, though. The Under-21 qualifying campaign for Euro 2011 could begin in March, leaving Stark with just one date in February with which to further gel relative strangers into a unit. It seems an impossible task, but Stark is not one to grumble.

"It is difficult to get the players released for any more games, even for get-togethers," he said. "You hear club managers complaining all the time about there being too much football as it is. So I don't think they will be desperate to give us players in and around their first team.

"We would like to have more time with them, but I have no complaints with the way clubs have let us have their players."

The youthful nature of this latest crop was best illustrated by an incident on Tuesday night, when a group of players seemed to use "scissors, paper, stone"

to decide who should take a penalty kick. Scott Arfield, no doubt giddy with excitement after cutting Jamie Murphy's paper, saw his shot saved by Trevor Carson, thus denying what would have been an equaliser just before half-time.

Stark initially expressed his disappointment with his players' parlour games before they collectively insisted the incident had not actually taken place. Arfield, the Falkirk midfielder, later offered an explanation.

"The two of us he and Murphy both grabbed the ball at the same time and it was a bit of a joke. Then Paul Caddis came over and made the decision and told me to take it, and I missed it. So I'm blaming him and he's blaming me."

Arfield, with nine caps, is now a relative veteran in Stark's squad and hopes to use that experience to help the recent arrivals.

"I feel like one of the more experienced ones now, along with Lewis Stevenson, Kevin McDonald, and Caddis. We have a lot to give to the lads as there are a lot of young boys who have come in and not played as much. This squad is as good as the last one, so it's up to us to help turn it around and play the way we know we can.

"We have potential in players like Murphy, Chris Maguire and David Goodwillie, but it's not easy for them to come in and fill the boots of Steven Fletcher, Steven Naismith and Ross McCormack, so the more games we play, the more we can build an understanding.

"That's just the first game, so hopefully it's onwards and upwards from here."