Miller time: Kenny slips out of the cotton wool

Phil Gordon believes that Brown may be about to break his habit of protecting precocious talent

It is the baby face that has prompted people to be anxious about the welfare of Kenny Miller. The Rangers forward looks as if he should be in the playground rather than at the deep end of top- class football.

It is the baby face that has prompted people to be anxious about the welfare of Kenny Miller. The Rangers forward looks as if he should be in the playground rather than at the deep end of top- class football.

Perhaps it is an omen. Denis Law wore spectacles and was so callow that his headmaster had to write a letter home asking if young Denis could be allowed to play football. Law could play. He remains Scotland's youngest capped player at 18 and scored 30 goals for his country, while his ruthlessness at Manchester United removed the notion of theinnocent kid.

Miller is 20, though he may have a hard time convincing the doormen of Edinburgh's pubs of that on Wednesday evening if he returns home from celebrating his international debut for Scotland against Australia in a friendly at Hampden. He has been waiting quite a while to prove his identity.

The public would have had him in a dark-blue jersey a year ago, but Craig Brown resisted. Now his goals are simply too potent for Scotland to ignore: this is Miller time.

His predatory eye against St Mirren last Saturday elevated Miller alongside Marco Negri and Paul Sturrock as the only men to score five goals in a Scottish Premier League match. Another ruthless finish against Monaco in the Champions' League on Tuesday meant Brown would have looked foolish to ignore him any longer.

The Scotland manager has not been alone in wrapping Miller - who has only four Under-21 caps - in cotton wool. Alex McLeish, his manager at Hibernian, did it too by sending him out on loan, while Dick Advocaat insisted Miller's time was the future rather than the present when he refused to use the player he spent £2m on during the summer.

Yet, when one considers how Michael Owen, the same age as Miller, has hit a brick wall internationally and been plagued by injuries since his explosion at 18, perhaps Brown's reticence to promote will simply protect the striker's long-term career.

In May, Miller's 14 goals for Hibs stirred a cry for him to be rewarded with a first cap in the friendly with the Republic of Ireland in Dublin. Instead, Brown sent him north of the border with the Scotland Under-21 side to a triangular tournament with Northern Ireland and Wales.

"In my opinion, he was not ready to go into the full team," Brown insisted. "I watched him seven times in two months. There was undoubted potential and he is a very good player, but there were guys in the queue in front of him for a Scotland jersey. You always try to pick players in form. Strikers, in particular, blow hot and cold and Miller is on fire right now.

"I didn't see his performance against St Mirren, but I watched a tape of it. I saw him for myself against Monaco, where he not only took his goal well but led the line and showed courage against big, aggressive defenders."

Despite a CV that includes coaching Scotland's Under-16, -19 and -21 squads, Brown sees pitfalls rather than quantum leaps when dealing with precocious talent. Eoin Jess, Scott Booth and Duncan Ferguson were all part of the Under-21 side who reached the European Championship semi-final in 1992 and were rewarded with promotion and full caps by the age of 20. None has lasted the pace, internationally.

The recent experience with Mark Burchill underlined that. A year ago fans clamoured for the young Celtic striker to play at Wembley in the Euro 2000 play-off. But frustration at being behind Henrik Larsson, Mark Viduka and now Chris Sutton has blighted his promise. Burchill is now on loan at Birmingham City, where at least the goals are flowing again, something Miller can identify with. "Mark was the year below me at Hutchison Vale Boys' Club in Edinburgh," recalls Miller, "and it's good to see him scoring again. Being loaned out was the turning point for me."

In Miller's case, it was not the the big-money environment of a Nationwide First Division club but the modest setting of Stenhousemuir, then in the Scottish Third Division. "It toughened me up. A lot of people think at that level it's just big bruisers who will kick you, but there are a lot of good players. They helped me to play rather than pumping high balls all the time, and I came back to Hibs with a lot of confidence."

Alex McLeish, as befits a man with 77 caps for Scotland as a central defender, honed his awareness of markers. Miller has patience off the field as well as on it, refusing to brood when neither Brown nor Advocaat were turning to him. "There were a lot of players in the Under-21 squad who were getting first-team experience from 17 and 18 years old, but it was only last season that I broke into the Hibs team. When I came to Rangers I knew I had to be patient.

"There are a lot of quality players at Ibrox, especially up front. Just because I scored five against St Mirren, I did not expect to be in the side against Monaco. I had only played a handful of games this season for Rangers, so I did not expect to be in the frame for Scotland."

Miller's goal against Monaco illustrated his appetite for boldness. "If you are scoring goals you must be willing to try things rather than be afraid to make mistakes," he says. "The worst thing you can do as a striker is not take risks."

The same could apply to Brown, who will use Wednesday to assess his options before the World Cup resumes in March. If the manager wants comfort, the record books show another who made his debut at 20: Kenny Dalglish.