His World Cup dream is over but Town defender Tommy Smith believes every cloud has a silver lining.
He and his New Zealand colleagues’ hopes of participating in next summer’s finals in Brazil were firmly dashed when they suffered a 9-3 aggregate defeat by Mexico in the play-offs last month.
But at least Smith will have a full summer to recharge his batteries ahead of the 2014/15 campaign and he admitted: "It gives me a chance to have a proper off-season again. I feel that helped me in the pre-season just gone so that will definitely benefit my club football.”
Smith, who played in every one of the All Whites’ group games in South Africa in 2010, offered no excuses for the outcome over two games against Mexico.
He said: "We went to Mexico for the first game and were playing at altitude. It’s always tough to adjust to that. To be fair, they stopped the Mexican League for a couple of weeks so the team could train together full-time.
"That had to benefit them as well and after losing the first leg 5-1 we were chasing it. We got caught on the counter attack early on in the second leg and that sort of killed the tie really.
"Yes, it was disappointing, but I think realistically when we got drawn against Mexico it was always going to be a long shot. They should never have been put in that position, being in the play-off matches.
"We gave it as good a go as we could have but we just came up short. We weren’t good enough at the end of the day so we now regroup and we’ll go again for the next one.”
Smith captained his country in the double-header and added: "I read that there were 105,000 people there so it was a great experience. That’s the most I’ve ever played in front of and probably will ever play in front of.
"It’s something I’ll never forget, especially as I was captain and leading the team out there was just an immensely proud moment for me.
"Every time I get to wear an armband for either club or country it’s a proud moment and if I’m given that responsibility I try to deal with it as best I can.”