Thursday 13 November 2014 20:05, UK
Scott Brown admits he is relishing the chance of facing Republic of Ireland for Scotland at Celtic Park on Friday evening.
The 29-year-old Celtic captain has been in sparkling form for club and country since returning to fitness after an early-season hamstring injury.
Ireland travel to Glasgow for a huge European Qualifier and Brown is hopeful the hosts can defeat Martin O'Neill's men in front of a partisan Parkhead home crowd.
Brown told this week’s Celtic View: "As a Scotland fan the game is huge because it’s a great occasion for us to be playing at our home stadium and to be playing in front of all the Scotland fans and Ireland fans at Celtic Park will make it one of those nights that no one will ever forget.
“I’m sure there are a lot of Celtic and Scotland fans who are looking forward to it and on my own behalf I am relishing pretty much every game for Scotland just now and every game for Celtic.
“Both teams are in a good place just now and for Scotland it would be great if we could get a victory because Ireland started really well and they got a good result away to Germany as well so the group is still wide open.
“Results like that show that it is a hard group and I know that everyone was saying Germany should run away with it but it’s not working out that way.
“I think this is the toughest group in the tournament. If you look at how tight it is, no one has won three or four games in a row so it shows you it’s going to be hard.
“We played well home and away to Poland and then we did well against Germany too and everyone started to pay attention and saw that we do have a place up for grabs in the Euros, so we can push it but we still have a lot to do.
“I know we’ve had some good games but we really need to keep that going and stay consistent to get that winning mentality back with Scotland.”
Watch Scotland v Republic of Ireland on Sky Sports HD5 from 7pm on Friday