FORMER Newport County AFC striker Conor Washington is gunning for Germany after helping Northern Ireland to their first win at Euro 2016.

Washington, who played for County between 2012 and 2014, started for his adopted nation in the 2-0 win over Ukraine on Thursday having come off the bench in last week’s defeat to Poland.

Northern Ireland face Germany in their final group game on Tuesday and Washington believes they can get something against the world champions and seal a place in the last-16.

“We’ve got Germany on Tuesday and we can get a result,” said Washington, who joined the Exiles from St Ives Town and moved on to first Peterborough United and then Queens Park Rangers.

“I would say most teams would struggle to get anything against us when we play like we did against Ukraine — with high intensity pressure. It can’t be easy to face.”

The former postman is loving life in the Northern Irish camp and he doesn’t want to go home any time soon.

“My phone is full of Facebook notifications,” he said. “My girlfriend, stepdad and mum were in the ground and I got a message from the manager at St Ives just before kick-off.

“It’s just amazing. I can’t even say that I dreamt back in those days that this would ever happen. I really didn’t. But I don’t want it to stop.”

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Meanwhile, Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill has revealed that he got the inspiration to drop star man Kyle Lafferty and pick Washington after watching Mario Gotze flourish as a false nine in Germany’s win over Ukraine.

The bold gamble paid off as Washington helped inspire Northern Ireland to a 2-0 win thanks to goals from Gareth McAuley and Niall McGinn.

“Germany played with Gotze against Ukraine,” explained O’Neill. “He’s a different player from Conor but I thought the two Ukraine centre-halves would prefer not to play against a striker with that kind of movement.

“In the end I decided to bring Josh Magennis on late in the game instead of Kyle but that was because Josh is probably a better marker at set pieces than Kyle, which is why we went with him.

“But Kyle is a massive part of the squad and he still has a massive part to play in the tournament for us going forward.”

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