Wayne Rooney on tying England goal-scoring record: 'It's a proud moment'

Manchester United forward Wayne Rooney has every reason in the world to wear the England shirt with pride for the rest of the day after the Three Lions defeated San Marino by six goals to claim a spot in the 2016 European Championship.

The 29-year-old striker scored his 49th goal for England, a penalty which tied the record number of goals for the national team set by Sir Bobby Charlton.

"It's a proud moment," Rooney told Sky Sports after the match. "To be there sitting at the top with him in terms of goals is a great achievement and something I'm very proud of.

"Obviously I feel like I've got a lot of time left to go on and be the leading scorer but tonight it's just a huge moment for me," Rooney continued. "It's always nice to a score. It was a bit weird actually because I knew the pitch wasn't great so I had to straighten my run-up a bit for the penalty, so I didn't slip, and thankfully it went in."

While Rooney's own objective may have been to get on the score sheet as many times as possible, he says he and his teammates really only had one thing in mind against San Marino.

"Winning tonight was the bottom line," Rooney said. "We knew we were going to win and qualify but you've still got to do the job. It's great for the team, great for the fans, and great for the country, but we've got another game on Tuesday and we want to perform again."

Now, England becomes the first team to qualify for the 2016 EURO Cup, aside from hosts France. Still, Rooney says, the team's work isn't done just because a spot has been claimed.

"We have to get better," Rooney said. "We've done what we set out to do, which is to qualify, but we still have to improve if we are going to do well in the tournament next year.

"Thankfully we've got time and games to do that," he added. "If the manager wants to work on different ideas then I'm sure he can do that in these upcoming games."