OLIVER BURKE and Oliver McBurnie combined to hand Scotland an important Euro 2019 win in the Baltic outpost of Liepaja last night in a thoroughly professional performance.
Scot Gemmill's young side were well beaten by England on Friday in Middlesbrough, but they responded positively to that loss when two goals in three first half minutes meant the points were always going to be heading in Scotland's direction.
After their initial defeat of Holland, it means Scotland have won two out of three qualifiers and they will now go into next month's double-header in Perth with Latvia and Ukraine in fine spirits.
And ultimately, they eased to a win thanks to West Brom's Burke and Swansea City striker McBurnie.
Gemmill was delighted with the success. He said: "Everyone knew it would be difficult and you had to adapt to the conditions and I thought our players did that very well.
"The players deserve a lot of credit for tonight. It's hard to come to places like this. Some of them are not used to coming to this so it was a terrific experience. This is what we want them to be able to do for the full squad to come to places like this and win. They were lower than us in the Rankings and in the seeding pots and we came out here and found a way to win.
"I think it says a lot about Oliver Burke's relationship with our staff because he knows how highly regarded he is within the SFA. It also says a lot about West Brom that they trust us to bring him. In terms of the team, he really came up with the goods. You can talk about game plans and preparations, but you have to do it on the day and we did that. It makes you proud that we are working with that type of player.
"We have a double-header coming up now in a few weeks and we can now look forward to playing those games at home and I would like to encourage people to come and watch us."
Gemmill made one change from that Friday night with McBurnie replacing Barnsley's Stevie Mallan.
After a positive start, St Mirren's Lewis Morgan went close inside the opening couple of minutes, before he turned provider by whipping in an inviting cross which was turned over by McBurnie.
And it was no surprise when Scotland took a 16th minute lead. Hearts' John Souttar deserved credit for winning a 50-50 crunching tackle in the tackle in the centre of the park. From there, Morgan drove forward and threaded the perfect pass to Burke, who easily netted a one-on-one with the keeper.
Three minutes later, Scotland doubled their advantage when McBurnie headed home from a cracking cross from Dom Thomas.
McBurnie was denied his second goal a few minutes later when his pointblank header was brilliantly saved by Latvian keeper Kristaps Zommers.
But Scotland had to rely on Hamilton Accies keeper Ryan Fulton making a couple of terrific stops as Latvia pressed for a lifeline back into the game.
The Scots continued to dominate after the break and St Mirren's Morgan scuffed a volley wide after Burke picked him out with a great cross from the right.
And they were the width of the woodwork away from netting their third with 15 minutes left when Chris Cadden rattled the bar following McBurnie's lay-off.
Scotland comfortably played out the rest of the game to record a comprehensive win in an encouraging display.
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