IT was probably never going to be a straightforward assignment in Minsk, and so it proved for Shelley Kerr and her players. Nevertheless, the Scotland squad go into Tuesday night’s second Group 2 game against Albania in Paisley with three World Cup qualifying group points safely bagged.

That wasn’t the case with the squad’s hold luggage on Monday.

It didn’t make the connecting flight from Frankfurt to Minsk because their plane from Edinburgh was late taking off. That led to 24 hours of inconvenience, which included borrowing training kit from the hosts, before the 43 missing bags were delivered. But as Kerr pointed out, there is no point in worrying over events you can’t control or influence.

The 2-1 win over Belarus was, like September’s 3-0 friendly victory in Hungary, another step towards the head coach’s aim of making the team more attack-minded and exciting to watch. There was much to admire in the pace and directness of full-backs Kirsty Smith and Hayley Lauder, and, in front of them, Lisa Evans and Claire Emslie.

The stats confirm that Scotland were by far the better team, but had it not been for Jane Ross, who scored her 52nd international goal and forced Belarus into conceding Scotland’s winner, the outcome might not have been so favourable.

So, the obvious question regarding the worrying finishing of the last two games is this: is it something Kerr and her assistant Andy Thomson can control or influence?

The answer is they can try to influence it by setting up training to hone and improve the players’ finishing skills. But the real control comes from the players themselves – only they can deliver goals in the more pressurised environment of competitive games.

EVEN those who believed the Football Association were making a real hash of handling the Mark Sampson fiasco were taken aback at evidence presented to the UK Parliament’s digital, culture, sport and media committee on Wednesday.

Eni Aluko and Drew Spence have finally got their apology, but senior FA figures, including chairman Greg Clarke and chief executive Martin Glenn, have acted woefully throughout the seedy saga.

Nor can those England players who made a public and embarrassing show of support for Sampson last month look back on their betrayal of Aluko and Spence with any pride. It has been an unsavoury episode with further repercussions inevitable.