AS a Dundee United supporter, Gavin Byers knows all about the difficulties of trying to convince a sceptical world that you belong in the top tier. Fortunately, when it comes to April’s Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast, Scotland’s hockey players of both sexes were able to do precisely that. Now all they have to do is live up to it.

The men, who finished eighth at Glasgow 2014, met their seasonal targets by winning EuroHockey Championship II and reaching round three of the World League in London in the summer, enough to squeeze into ninth spot of ten allocated for next spring’s sporting showpiece. They have drawn an exacting pool against the likes of hosts Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa, with the women – sixth placed finishers back in Glasgow – facing Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ghana.

“The squad is probably in the best place it has been for a long time - off the back of a year which has probably been one of our most successful years,” said Byers. “It has been such a leap forward for us, just the level of team we have played against and the results we have managed to get.

“We drew with Canada in London, who are going to be in our group,” he added. “We have played South Africa over the years and been quite close with them. So I think we have managed to extinguish any of the fear we used to have against these teams. Australia obviously are way up there, New Zealand are a bit of transition, but I think this year we have proven on our day that we can compete against anyone.

“When we were in the European B division we were the team expected to win the division we were in, a bit like Dundee United in the Championship right now!” he added. “At the start of this year, we basically got told we had to meet a target. When someone says ‘this is on the line’ then I think that probably did help the squad, individually and collectively.

“But when we go up against Commonwealth Games teams, have that underdog mentality too, a bit like when Dundee United go in against Celtic and Rangers. I think we use that to help us too.”

It is an exciting prospect and Byers - a key member of the high-flying Grove Menzieshill club in Dundee, not to mention the club’s development officer – is desperate to be part of it all. But first he faces a sweat to ensure he is on that plane. A desire to select only in-form players means the final composition of the hockey squads will be pushed back to early next year, and past experience has taught Byers to be cautious.

Having been a travelling reserve for the Scotland squad in Delhi in 2010, he subsequently found his face didn’t fit when the home games in Glasgow came around. Nothing is being left to chance this time around; he spent six months playing for Melville City Hockey Club in Perth, Western Australia, last year - a period which saw him brushing shoulders with three members of the Australia side which flopped at the Rio Olympics last year but will carry home hopes all over again on the Gold Coast.

“For me, it has to be third time lucky, I suppose,” he added. “I was travelling reserve when we went to Delhi in 2010, I was 20 at that point. Then I didn’t make selection for 2014 which was pretty difficult to deal with.

“I had been in the team throughout the last four years then it came down to selection,” he added. “Coaches and form came into it and they just felt I wasn’t in form.

“It was difficult even to come and watch, but because the team was picked quite far in advance, I had sort of got over the initial disappointment by the time the games came around. But even now it is difficult, when friends and family relive it all, and say how great it was. I tell them to shut up.”

Byers’ time in Perth, Australia – which saw him land a day job as a hockey coach in a girls’ school - gave him an enviable beginners’ guide to the pressures which the hosts will have on their shoulders next April, even if he stuck out like a sore thumb at times.

“The Scottish league is what it is, it isn’t at the level of Germany, Holland or Australia,” he said. “So if you can get away and play in these different leagues then it definitely helps. It was six months I had over there, and life flew by. People looked at me when I went to the beach. It was 20 degrees, I was in shorts and T-shirt, ‘let’s go to the beach’. They were saying ‘we only go to the beach when it is like 30 degrees’. It was touching 30-32 in November when I came back home again and I was thinking ‘that is hot enough for me’.”

Having won all five of the previous Commonwealth hockey competitions, the Australians will take some stopping on home soil. But a newer, more confident Scotland will give it their best shot.

“The Aussie hockey team are a pretty big deal over there,” said Byers. “They were tipped as a gold medal for Rio but got beat in the quarter finals so there was a bit of an inquest.

“Three of their team played in the same team as me in Perth and I think they have won the gold medal the last five times it has been played, so that is big pressure,” he added. “Hopefully that will work in our favour and they are nervous but they are pretty good!”