Derby County midfielder Jason Knight is looking forward to getting back into action with the Rams after missing last weekend's trip to Peterborough United on international duty.


Knight played 77 minutes against France earlier this week as the Green Army narrowly lost out 1-0 in Dublin while he was also on the bench for their friendly success against Latvia last week.

Speaking to RamsTV, the 22-year-old spoke about the experience of the last two weeks and looked ahead to a return to action against in-form Ipswich Town at Pride Park Stadium on Saturday (3pm kick-off) as the Rams look to hold onto a place in Sky Bet League One's top six.

On where playing against France ranks in his career...

It was a big game. It was a disappointing result in the end as we lost 1-0, but our performance we can build on for our June matches. Everyone knows playing for Ireland is the peak for me and always will be. It was a great occasion, we put on a good performance but we wanted a result and unfortunately we didn't get it.

You want to test yourself and play in these big games all the time. It's something I'm striving for and I'm trying to play in as many games of that sort of standard as I can.


On playing the left of a front three for Ireland...

I was just happy to be out there. I've got used to playing in that position for the international team, I enjoyed it. It was a bit of a shift but I enjoyed it all the same.

On how confident he feels about getting into the Ireland team...

Naturally as a person I'm always trying to improve. It's a really competitive team at the moment so nobody is guaranteed to be there. I always say that to myself. These international camps are like gold dust. They don't come around every day so I need to make the most of it and hopefully that's what I'm doing at the moment.


On what it was like playing internationally whilst Derby were still in action...

It was interesting. Usually we have an international camp and everyone else is off so that was weird, in a way. I was keeping in touch and seeing how the lads were doing and I watched bits of the game at Peterborough.

On his assessment of the 2-0 loss at Peterborough...

I thought we did really well in the first half but didn't convert our chances and then we got a bit of a sucker punch after half time and after that we were trying to pull ourselves back in the game. Peterborough are a good team and we've got another good test coming up on Saturday against Ipswich.


On the game against Ipswich Town...

We've hit a bit of a bump but this is a great game for us to bounce back in front of a bumper crowd. Everyone is looking forward to it, everyone is excited and everyone is feeling fresh so it's going to be a great match.

Not long ago we were on a good run of form, it's all a rollercoaster. We've got a lot of experienced lads in our group so everyone is grounded but determined to put this run to bed and get better.