Jack Iredale hasn’t given up on his dream of representing Australia at a World Cup finals.

Though the Wanderers defender missed out on the squad travelling to Qatar, he hopes success with his club can propel him to international level by the time the next tournament arrives in four years.

Iredale has succeeded in his first aim, securing regular football at Bolton since his summer move from Cambridge United, and he will most likely be patrolling the left wing-back position again at Fleetwood this weekend.

Now he hopes to help the Whites into the Championship to give himself the best possible chance of attracting the selectors’ attention.

“It has always been my dream to play for Australia at a World Cup,” he said. “I thought I might have had a possible chance, especially playing at a club as big as Bolton.

“There were so many reasons why I chose to come here, but that was another massive reason, playing at a club as big as Bolton with the trajectory that the club is on, it’s only going to help me in terms of my personal goals as well.

“But I haven’t quite got recognised and scouted yet. It is definitely right at the very top of my goals list and I’m going to keep doing everything I can to try and hopefully get a call-up one day because it would be a dream for me.”

The Socceroos have been drawn in a difficult group alongside France, Denmark and Tunisia, but Iredale thinks they will punch above their weight.

“Australia get written off at every single World Cup and I feel like they go out and surprise people at every single one,” he said. “They’ve got that Aussie diggers’ spirit and never ever are going to give up. Players will run themselves into the ground but also the technical level of Australian football is gradually increasing as well.

“I’ll be a fan this World Cup. I would love to be over there and involved in the squad, but I know a few of the boys in the team so I’ll definitely be watching.”

Iredale went through the Australian Institute of Sport as a teenager, having followed his family from Scotland to New Zealand, and eventually to Perth.

He played for the Aussies up to Under-17s level and after battling back from a serious knee injury, eventually took the leap to move back to the UK – first with Morton, then Carlisle and Cambridge.

He is proud of the way football – or soccer – is now starting to compete with the more traditional activities in the sport-mad country.

“There are so many that you have to compete with,” he said. “I think football youth-wise is by far the biggest, but I moved to Australia when I was 10 or 11, but even from that age I think just the mentality and the grittiness that Australians have.

“They’re stubborn and strong characters so when they get told that maybe they can’t do something, which is perhaps playing top-flight football overseas, they’re going to do everything they can to get to the top.

“I know I had a lot of challenges growing up and it was a big risk for me to leave Australia to play in the UK because of just how massive it is here. But it’s something I’m going to keep trying to do as well.”

Iredale’s sporting genes run deep – and as a youth, he had the option to follow in either of his parents’ footsteps. His father played rugby union to a high standard and his mother represented New Zealand at the Sydney Olympics in Judo.

“I was about three or four at the time. I had nothing to do with the decision!” Iredale laughed. “She got an opportunity to work in New Zealand, found out that she was very good at judo and one thing led to another and she went to the Sydney Olympics.

“I do have very early memories of going over to watch her.

“Dad was very good at rugby growing up as well. Dad is the rugby side, mum is the judo side, but for me it was always football.”

Ian Evatt may be happy to learn that Iredale no longer keeps up his judo, although some of the skills may come in handy in the rough and tumble of League One.

“I grew up doing it,” Iredale explained. “The way that it works back home is you have to be 16 to get your black belt and I think I’d only just turned 16 when I stopped, so I didn’t go for it. I was the one just underneath.

“I don’t think the gaffer would be too happy if I was coming in the next day with an injury from doing judo! I got to an age where I had to make a decision. I was playing rugby union, judo and football.

“I loved all three but for me football was always the one that I wanted to do and my parents supported that. They said ‘when you’ve got to make a decision, just do what you want to do’.

“For me, football was the one I wanted to pursue full-time so I had to stop playing rugby when I was about 13 and then stopped judo when I was about 16.”