Scotland manager Steve Clarke hailed the belief in the squad that kept their Nations League survival hopes alive following another late winner.
Captain Andy Robertson headed home John Souttar’s cross three minutes into added time to earn the Scots a 2-1 win in Poland which moved them above their hosts into third place in Group A1.
Scotland now have a two-legged relegation play-off to look forward to in March against one of the runners-up from the second tier after taking seven points from their last three games.
Clarke said: “The more you play at this level the better you get. We started with three defeats, three narrow defeats with good performances.
“The players didn’t lose belief, I didn’t lose belief in the players. They end up taking seven points from the last three games, which gets us into that play-off.
“The more you play at this level, the more you learn how to win the games. That’s what we’ve proved.
“I’m really pleased for the players, I’m really pleased for the staff, I’m really pleased for the supporters.
“It’s a good way to end this part of the Nations League campaign, obviously we’ve got a bit longer now that we’ve managed to secure a play-off. I look forward to the games in March.”
John McGinn followed up his winner against Croatia with a third-minute strike in Warsaw and both Billy Gilmour and Scott McTominay hit the frame of the goal in an open first half.
Poland levelled with a powerful strike into the top corner in the 59th minute from Kamil Piatkowski but Scotland kept chipping away until their captain produced the goods to mark his 80th cap with his first international goal in five years.
“You always believe it,” Clarke said of the late winner. “It was a very open game, we gave them a lot of chances.
“So we always felt that maybe one more chance would come, maybe not from the source it actually came from.
“Fantastic cross from John Souttar, who was outstanding defensively, and Grant Hanley. Fantastic cross, great header from the captain and a nice way to finish the game.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here