It was easy to forgive Central Coast Mariners attacker Jason Cummings for looking a little discombobulated when he walked into the A-Leagues' season launch event at the Melbourne warehouse of Ultra Football.
The 27-year-old attacker had flown into Melbourne just that morning after playing for the Socceroos in their final match before the World Cup, as a second-half substitute who won and scored a penalty inside 17 minutes to make it 2-0 against New Zealand in Auckland.
He'd previously been an unused member of coach Graham Arnold's team that defeated the Kiwis 1-0 in Brisbane 48 hours earlier, and, prior to that, had served as one of the faces of the squad announcement alongside fellow Mariners (soon to be Newcastle United) attacker Garang Kuol.
"In demand, mate. I'm in demand," Cummings grinned to ESPN. "But it's been a good week. To get the goal as well was amazing. It was worth it."
Set to kick off his A-League Men campaign on Saturday afternoon, when the Mariners host Newcastle Jets in the latest iteration of the F3 Derby, Cummings has returned to Australia with a pretty clear timetable to secure his next international moment.
Six weeks.
Cummings has six weeks to show that he deserves a place in Arnold's 26-man squad for the World Cup in Qatar.
Short of an injury, the position of centre forwards Mitch Duke, Adam Taggart, and Jamie Maclaren within the squad look relatively secure; hence Cummings must convince Arnold that the extra slots available for the World Cup afford the Socceroos coach the licence to select a fourth striker.
Though helped by a schedule that will see the Mariners face just one side that finished above them on the 2021-22 ALM season during those six weeks, Cummings knows he's going to have to do something special to gain selection. But he's not going to do anything differently.
"Six goals, mate. Six games, six goals," Cummings said.
"Arnie said that he's going to come and watch a few of the games so I need to do what I do best; just be me. I'm going to try and work hard for the team, score goals, and win games.
"Nothing really changes. I'll be going into every game with the same approach that I've gone into every game: Try my best. Try my best and score goals. And then hopefully I can get there."
Less than a year ago, the thought of Cummings being called up to the Socceroos, let alone being a player with a legitimate claim to a seat on the plane to Qatar, would have been considered fanciful if not laughable.
Last December, the Edinburgh-born forward, eligible to play for the Socceroos by virtue of an Australian mother, was on the outer at Scottish club Dundee after being sent home from training after being seen at the Open Goal live event at the Hydro in Glasgow the prior evening.
Already having consigned him to a bench role that season, the Dundee manager James McPake said Cummings wasn't in a fit state to train, although Cummings would vehemently deny this in a subsequent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.
Nonetheless, the striker had a reputation as a loose cannon, and that opened the door for the Mariners to swoop and sign the former Nottingham Forest, Hibernian and Rangers man. It was arguably a perfect fit, as the Gosford-based club had a bit of a reputation as a place where misfits, cast-offs and reclamation projects could thrive.
Cummings quickly rewarded the Mariners to the extent that it's arguable his call-up to the Socceroos was overdue; he registered 10 goals and six assists in just 21 games after arriving in Gosford during the January transfer window, but he was left out of Arnold's squad for the World Cup playoffs against United Arab Emirates and Peru.
"I appreciate it. I got a lot of love on social media. #CapTheCumdog was trending. So thank you to everyone that has supported me," he said.
"It's just an honour to put on the green-and-gold jersey, and to get a goal as well just tops it off. I'm loving it, mate.
"It's went perfectly so far. I wish I came out to Australia a long time ago. But I'm here now and this was my objective when I came out here: To score goals for the Mariners, get everyone talking about me on the pitch and see how good a player I can be; and, eventually, it was to get a call-up with the Socceroos.
"And now I've done that. It's just the beginning. Hopefully, I can get many more call-ups."
Cummings' coach at the Mariners has no complaints about the conduct of his leading man.
"The media in the U.K., they'll print about anyone that's a bit of a character and unfortunately that went against Jason," Mariners coach Nick Montgomery told ESPN.
"I think Jason made a few silly mistakes but when I looked to bring him in I knew he was a top-class player. Probably a bit misunderstood. And the people that I spoke to, that I really trusted, they all said the same thing: That he was a massive, massive talent.
"The reason that we brought him into the Mariners was because he wasn't perfect, with the ability to change him and to change some of the things that led him down.
"And he's a credit to himself; the boys love him, the fans love him, and he does his work on the pitch, and you can see the impact he's had on the league and now the international stage."
Indicative of his presence at the A-Leagues' season launch, Cummings has quickly become one of the faces of not just the Mariners but the competition more broadly heading into tto be he 2022-23 season.
He, or rather his nickname, "Cumdog", was trending around Australian Twitter during his time with the Socceroos (leading to some very bemused reactions), but the loose nature that attracted controversy in the U.K. has been reined in to sit firmly in the "endearing" category.
"You talk about a club culture, that's only created by having good people at the football club," said Montgomery. "That's in recruiting players and staff as well. You want them buying into what the club's about. That's evident on the pitch now, the boys fight for each other every week.
"Being a regional club and one of the smaller clubs, it's vitally important because we're the underdog and everyone writes us off. So we need to stick together and have a band of brothers."
Cummings said the Mariners "made it so much easier" to move from Scotland.
"Obviously, sometimes it's tough coming over to a new country on the other side of the world," he told ESON.
"With different people. But every single person that I've met in Australia has been amazing.
"They're good people over here. And especially at the Mariners, they're good boys. We've got a good manager and a good staff. They all believe in me and they all support me. The boys, we're just like brothers. Even away from football, we go and get coffee so there's just a proper team spirit, which made it so easy for me to come here."
Growing up and living most of his life in Scotland, Cummings hasn't had a lot of opportunities to experience World Cup fever.
Scotland haven't qualified since 1998, when Cummings was three years old, and he made his two international appearances for the senior squad in friendlies after their failed efforts to book a place at Russia 2018.
"It would be a dream come true," Cummings said of his World Cup aspirations.
"Even when I was a young lad, playing in the World Cup was the creme de la creme. It's the best. It doesn't get much better than that, does it? So that would be a dream come true.
"France 98, I was three years old, mate. So I was probably, I don't know, sucking on a dummy. Well, maybe not at that age. I can't even remember Scotland in a World Cup, it's been that long.
"But obviously Australia, they make the World Cup all the time! I remember watching them. I remember Tim Cahill's goal [against the Netherlands in 2014], it was a beauty, wasn't it?
"But I need to keep my feet on the ground right now, go back to club football with the Mariners right now and take it from there."
