ST HELENS-BORN Conor Coady hailed his England debut as “a dream come true”, but admitted he was disappointed to have to settle for a draw with Denmark.

The Wolves defender, who grew up in Haydock and went to Rainford High, looked assured on his first appearance for the senior side in the goalless draw in Copenhagen.

When asked by Sky Sports how proud he was of his debut, Coady said: “Immensely, it is a dream come true. I said how much it means to me. There are some world-class players in this team, don’t let anybody else tell you differently.

“It is 0-0, a clean sheet, we are happy with that, but disappointed we didn’t come away with three points.

“I’m 27, I’m here to help England, these players and the team – that is the main goal, I don’t care about my own performance as long as we win."

St Helens Star:

The Wolves captain was typically vocal out on the pitch

Manager Gareth Southgate said he had “learned a lot” from the match and praised Coady's "excellent" performance.

He added: “We tried a new system which we will get better at given everything we have had to deal with – 10 pull-outs for various reasons.

“So we felt we wanted to start with stability – we could have probably been a bit higher with attacking threat in the first half, but we were in control and, given the stage of the season the players are at, that was really important.

“Second half we started to accelerate the game with some of the changes, putting Mason (Mount) into midfield made us more forward-thinking and Jack did the same.

St Helens Star:

Conor is interviewed after the match

“Ainsley (Maitland-Niles) I thought did really well, so I was very pleased with the players who made their debuts. I thought Conor Coady was excellent and Eric Dier has had two excellent games at centre-back for us, so the back three today was very solid.”