CARL Fletcher saw a valiant Welsh performance amount to nothing
when Austria scored an 87th minute winner in the Ernst Happel
Stadium on Wednesday night to rob John Toshack's men.
Now, after a taxing international Easter, the 25-year-old
midfielder is looking forward to returning to Hammers duty.
"It was a tough run with two games in four days,"
admitted Carl, who featured in Wales' home and away matches
against Austria. "The game in Austria was particularly hard to
take. We deserved to take something from the game and had the
chances to win it.
"Unfortunately, our goalkeeper Danny Coyne made a mistake late
in the game, but no one was attaching any blame to him. He's
done really well for us and in any case we should have done more
with the chances we had.
"Now we go into two tough games at club level against Wigan
and Burnley and my focus has shifted towards those.
"It's always an honour to represent my country and
obviously I want to win as many caps as I can and be successful
with Wales. But my job, first and foremost, is with West Ham United
and now that's where my priorities are.
"We've got eight games left and every one of those is
going to be vital to our season. The Play-offs are our target now
and we've got to make sure that we're in the top six at the
end of the season.
"To do that we need wins, and hopefully we can get this run
off to a good start with a result at Wigan."
Carl's Wales Heartache
31st March 2005