He has scored more than 100 goals in a career that has taken him from his homeland through England and Scotland.
However, Anthony Stokes believes a goal for the Republic of Ireland against Scotland at Celtic Park would be the highlight of his career so far.
This dream faces a series of encounters with awkward reality. The venue for the match has still to be decided and Stokes is far from certain to start.
He also admitted: "I haven't scored for Ireland yet at senior level, so it's something I've thought about many nights. I need to keep myself in the squad and keep pushing for a place because there's a lot of competition."
Stokes has been recalled to the Irish squad by Martin O'Neill after being banished by previous manager, Giovanni Trapattoni. He is determined to make an impact at senior level after a successful period in the under-21 team. "I haven't got as many caps as I would have liked," he conceded.
Stokes could also find Celtic team-mate Leigh Griffiths on the opposite side of the park when Scotland play the Republic and the Irishman has been impressed by the former Hibernian striker.
"It's great for him to settle in so quickly and get his first goal," he said after Griffiths scored against Hearts on Saturday. "He's done brilliantly overall since he came in."
He also said that playing at Celtic would give his fellow striker the perfect platform to present his credentials to Gordon Strachan, the national manager.
Griffiths may miss tonight's match at Pittodrie because of a calf strain and Stokes is braced for a testing game.
"Off the back of our last result against them, there's a little bit of extra spice going into this game," said Stokes in reference to the William Hill Scottish Cup defeat suffered by the champions this month.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article