GRANT HANLEY admits to being frustrated at his lack of game time this season, but the Newcastle United defender insists any personal disappointments will be shelved for the good of the team in the final six weeks of the campaign.

Hanley was touted as a potential captain when he completed a £6m move from Blackburn Rovers in July, but with Jamaal Lascelles and Ciaran Clark having formed Rafael Benitez’s first-choice centre-half pairing for the majority of the campaign, the 25-year-old has been restricted to just three Championship starts.

He could find himself a much more influential figure in the next few weeks, with Clark nursing ligament damage, but will have to overcome the ankle injury that forced him to withdraw from the Scotland squad last week in order to take his place in the starting line-up for Newcastle’s weekend game with Wigan.

Despite playing no part in Scotland’s games against Canada and Slovenia, he is expected to be fit to face the Latics, and while he would rather have been more heavily involved in the opening seven months of the season, he is determined to do all he can to help the team cause in the games that remain.

“This season has been tough for me personally because I’ve not played as much as I would have liked to,” said Hanley. “I’m not alone in that, but what I would say is that with the club, all the lads are pulling in the same direction.

“There’s no bitterness amongst the lads – everybody is fighting together. The competition for places is making everybody better players, and that’s a massive positive for us because our end goal is promotion.

“One of the massive strengths we have here is that the lads are together. We’re all pushing in the same direction.

“I’ve not had as much game time as I would have liked, but I’m not alone in that, there’s probably a number of lads who feel the same. The lads that have been playing have been doing well, and that’s just the way it is.

“Everyone will have a part to play, that’s why it’s important to be constantly ready and constantly on the top of your game. Then when the time comes when you’re called up, you’re ready to go.”

Hanley was one of three Newcastle players to have to pull out of international duty last week, with Clark and Daryl Murphy receiving treatment in the North-East rather than turning out for the Republic of Ireland.

With Matt Ritchie having been an unused substitute during Scotland’s weekend win over Slovenia, there is a good chance that none of Newcastle’s starting line-up against Wigan will have been involved in international matches.

That augurs well for their fitness in the remaining eight matches, and Hanley feels the international break could have come at an opportune time for his team-mates.

“Once the international break is over, there’s only a month and a bit to go,” he said. “It’s the back end of the season now so the games are more important than ever.

“It’s the business end of the season really. Hopefully, the lads will be a bit refreshed after the international break. It will be good to have had the break, and hopefully we’ll come back fully focused.”

With the Championship’s top three all kicking off at 3pm on Saturday, this weekend’s programme could be extremely important in terms of deciding the outcome of the promotion race.

With Brighton hosting Blackburn and Huddersfield entertaining Burton, the current top three all face teams in the bottom four positions in the table, but Hanley claims the Championship’s competitive nature means no one can afford to take anything for granted.

“You know that every game you go into in this league is going to be a fight,” he said. “Teams are going to be hard to break down and well organised. We’re no strangers to that, we know what to expect.

“I don’t think it matters who you are up against, every game is going to be tough. Whoever you are going out there against, every team is going to be well organised and hard to beat.”

Meanwhile, Newcastle could be roared on by 10,000 travelling fans in their final away game of the season at Cardiff City.

The Magpies’ trip to the Cardiff City Stadium has been moved to Friday, April 28 (7.45pm), and it is understood Newcastle officials have requested a 10,000-seat allocation in order to satisfy demand.

Cardiff’s stadium has a 33,500 capacity, but the average attendance this season is only half that figure, and while the usual away end only holds 2,300 fans, the Bluebirds are examining ways of increasing the space available to Newcastle fans.