The youngster told au.fourfourtwo.com last week that he hadn't been confident of a place in Graham Arnold's Olympic squad and so it proved.

But rather than dwell on what might have been, Burns is looking forward to the next challenge.

He told the Adelaide Advertiser: "I have to put it all aside now, start afresh. It is the only thing I can do."

"I am actually looking forward to going over to Greece. This will give me a good opportunity to put the Olympic thing all aside, have a good pre-season, get to know the boys.

"If I had gone to the Olympics I would have only got back when the season starts and probably would have taken a good eight months to break into the team.

"Now I can do the pre-season and take the positives away from the negatives."

Burns said he bore no grudges towards Arnold and didn't envy the coach his task of picking the squad.

He said: "It's the most cutthroat competition that I have been involved in - there was only 13 spots plus another two for keepers," he said.