When he finally hangs up his boots, the memory of the last week will be one of the first things Jamie Reid brings to mind.

The striker not only received his first senior international call-up at the age of 29 but went on to start both games, a draw with Romania and then a win over Scotland at Hampden Park.

And if that wasn't enough, it took just seven minutes of his debut to score his first international goal. 

"It was unbelievable, an unbelievable experience for me personally, just to be involved in nights like that," he said.

"It couldn’t have gone any better. 

"I probably thought this that day had passed me by but you’ve just got to keep going, keep working hard and when you look back on it, yeah, I've come quite a long way."

He went to the camp not thinking he was going to start but full of belief that if his moment came, he would take it. 

Reid said: "There were obviously good forwards who’ve been there before and I was just hoping to get on the pitch.

"But when [manager Michael O’Neill] told me the day before that I was starting, I couldn't wait I was so excited. 

"Even in the warm-up before the Romania game, it was just such a such a good experience. I was just enjoying it. 

"I went out there fairly relaxed. I thought I'd be nervous but maybe because I’d been told the day before I was fine. 

"I couldn’t have got off to a better start than that. As a striker, you always want that first goal, whether it's at the start of the season or when you join a new club. 

"Sometimes it can be like a monkey on your back if you don't get off to a quicker start so once I scored I could just ease my way into the game and show what I can do."

Scoring has been something that has not happened at club level for a little while, his last Stevenage goal coming on February 10 at Port Vale. 

Here again, belief in his ability was never an issue.

He said: "Even in the games before I went away, there weren’t many times where I've come off the pitch thinking ‘I should have scored’ or that I was lacking confident because I’d missed. 

"I haven't been missing chances in my opinion and my confidence is never low. 

"Once I get a chance, I always back myself. 

"The support and the messages I’ve had have been overwhelming, 

"All my friends, people I've played with, the fans, that support is appreciated by me and by my family as well. 

"It’s been an unbelievable 10 days." 

Now though it is back to the day job, and then means getting Stevenage into the League One play-offs, starting with a home game with Bolton Wanderers on Good Friday.

The striker said: "As much as I've enjoyed the last 10 days, now I'm back here, I've got to push that to the back of my mind. 

"As a club, we’ve got to a great position and I’ve got a different goal now. 

"I want to try and get this club into the play-offs, into the Championship." 

And he said the last-gasp point at Carlisle on Saturday, scored while he was travelling back from Bucharest, could be huge.

“That's one thing that the boys have got," he said, "we'll never give up and we'll give everything. 

“Whatever the table says, Carlisle, is still a tough place to go and the boys dug in, might not have deserved it, but it might be a good point at the end of the season. 

“It will be a difficult weekend [coming up] but we all know how we can play so we've just got to go into it and come out of the bank holiday on top.” 

Whether he will be involved though may be up for doubt after Northern Ireland's win over Steve Evans' Scotland.

"I’ve spoken to the boss, yeah," said Reid, "and I think I'm going to give him a bit of stick for that. 

"I'm not training with the kids but I'm not too sure [I'll start],” he added with the grin that may take some shifting.

“I'm not actually sure how the Scotland result went down, so we'll find out tomorrow.”