Scott McKenn in worst career tackle admission as Scotland defender heaps praise on 'victim' John McGinn

Scott McKenna still has the video nasty of the day he was given his marching orders for almost halving John McGinn in two.

By the big defender’s own admission that X-rated Scottish Cup shocker in which he dumped the midfielder on his now famous derriere remains the worst tackle of his career. Five years on from that walk of shame nobody is more delighted than McKenna to see McGinn enter Scottish football’s hall of fame.

Scotland’s talismanic midfielder and stand-in skipper will join the list of legends on the Hampden roll of honour with his 50th cap this evening while McKenna is on the verge of his 28th. It’s a far cry from when McGinn was strutting his stuff with Hibs while McKenna was making a name for himself in the wrong kind of way on loan at Ayr from Aberdeen. The footage of that scything ‘tackle’ that caught McGinn somewhere round the midriff midway through a Scottish Cup tie at Easter Road still gets produced at very international camp.

And asked if he could have imagined back then that he’d be lining up with his victim for Scotland half a decade later, the Nottingham Forest stopper said: “No definitely not!

"That tackle is probably still one of the worst ones I’ve made! Thankfully we’ve both managed to move on from it and are both doing okay.

“I’ve still got the video on the phone to show him when I need to. I keep it because he will tell someone new in nearly every camp that I did it to him. I like to keep the evidence.

“To be fair John’s probably too strong for me now but it’s great we have both managed to come so far from that day.”

McKenna has nothing but praise for the man who is set to don the captain’s armband in Andy Robertson’s absence again this evening.

He said: “Fifty caps is a great milestone. John