WITH 16 games of the Championship played, representing just over a third of the way through the league season, the latest international hiatus is as good a time as any to assess our team’s progress in what I like to divide into the first of three stages of the campaign.

Although it could be argued that Burnley haven’t been at their best in terms of convincing 90-minute performance thus far, there is no doubt they do possess the drive and determination to accumulate points.

MORE TOP STORIES:

At the end of the day that is what we all want and need if we are to achieve our goal of bouncing straight back to the Premier League, so we must be a pretty good all round unit to be currently sitting third in the table.

In order to maintain that, the fabric of the team has to be good enough to see the job through which has been displayed time and time again by their steadfast resilience to get something out of each game.

None more so than taking another away point at Wolves last Saturday when the Clarets had the capability to get a positive result by keeping a clean sheet in their 0-0 draw.

Crucially, there has been almost a seamless transition made by the replacements of our outgoing players in the summer with Tendayi Darikwa, Michael Keane and Andre Gray all proving more than adequate .

But how does our progress so far stand up to the template for success manufactured from the class of 2013-14 who won us promotion to the top table of English football?

Well, very well I would say, as our current points total of 32 is not far off the 35 gained back then after 16 played, and if we can pick up an achievable 12 more from our next seven matches we would go into the New Year level with our predecessors on 44 at halfway.

Now that would be laying down a distinct marker for the second half of the campaign wouldn’t it?

Finally, as it is an international break, best of luck to Stephen Ward’s Republic of Ireland who take on Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Euro 2016 Play-Offs this weekend.

I’ve been impressed by his determined application when he does make an appearance, and with a chance to take part in a major tournament next year he still has every incentive to play his part for club and country.