Newcastle star Paul Dummett set to make dramatic U-turn over international future and play for Wales under Ryan Giggs
Magpies left-back made himself unavailable for Wales in the summer of 2017 under previous boss Chris Coleman and opted to put his club before country
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NEWCASTLE defender Paul Dummett is ready to end his international exile and represent Wales under Ryan Giggs.
Left-back Dummett, who qualifies for the country through his Caerphilly-born grandfather, made his senior debut in a friendly against Holland in June 2014.
But only one other appearance – also against Holland in November 2015 – has come with Dummett having instead preferred to focus on his club career with the Magpies.
There was also a public spat with previous manager Chris Coleman after the 26-year-old chose to make himself unavailable for a World Cup qualifier in June 2017.
But with Wales legend Giggs now in charge of the national team, Dummett’s stance appears to have softened ahead of next month’s UEFA League of Nations qualifiers against the Republic of Ireland and Denmark.
Dummett told the Press Association: “At any club, any international team, when you have a change of manager, things change.
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“New managers have different ideas and different players play, so it is obviously a new era at Wales now. We’ll see what happens if I can speak to the manager in the next few weeks.”
Dummett was part of Wales’ pre-Euro 2016 training camp but did not make the cut for the final tournament squad.
He then failed to return to the set-up following the European Championships before opting to make himself unavailable in the summer of 2017.
Giggs has already tried to lure Dummett back after succeeding Coleman in January but the player rejected the invitation to play at the China Cup in March.
Dummett said: “We were going through a tough spell with Newcastle in the Premier League and I felt like it was the right decision that I made.
"I wanted to focus on Newcastle because ultimately I want to be playing in the Premier League and we were in the bottom three at the time.
"I wanted to make sure I was playing every week for Newcastle and he (Giggs) respected the decision that I made. But he was really positive when I spoke to him on the phone.”