• 3 months ago
Sports writer Graham Falk gives his immediate reaction to Scotland's crushing defeat to Poland at Hampden Park, as Steve Clarke's side have the worst possible start to their Nations League campaign.

#Scotland #NationsLeague
Transcript
00:00An extremely disappointing night for Scotland here at Hampden Park as they lose 3-2 to Poland
00:06thanks to a 95th minute penalty.
00:11A game that had some plus points especially in the second half and included a really spirited
00:15fight back which looked like Scotland may have got a point from but in reality the damage
00:20was done in the first half through two mistakes that they were undoing really.
00:25The first one, a short pass from Kenny McLean that leaves Billy Gilmore with maybe a little
00:31bit too much to do, he's then also out muscled a little bit too easily and then a goal from
00:36about 25-20 yards out which I think Angus Gunn will feel he should have done better
00:40on that puts Scotland 1-0 down early on.
00:44Scotland then largely never really got themselves going, they did have a disallowed goal but
00:48it was handball, I don't think there's too many arguments about it whether or not it
00:53was a deliberate handball but that's not the rule these days.
00:56And then just before half time when you can get in, regroup and sort of come back and
01:01have a fight back for sort of no reason at all really, Anthony Ralston puts in a really
01:07poor challenge which just wasn't needed and that leaves Scotland with an absolute mountain
01:11to climb.
01:12They did bounce back, Billy Gilmore puts in a goal pretty much straight after the half
01:17time whistle, he essentially came out and came on and scored, that's exactly the response
01:24that you'd want from Scotland, good finish from Billy Gilmore, that got the crowd up
01:28and Scotland started playing some better stuff, it still wasn't fluid but it was improved.
01:34They then got a goal through Scott McTominay who looked like the man who was going to score
01:39all night, he was the go-to man and I think he deserved a goal, I thought he was actually
01:43excellent tonight in a largely poor performance from Scotland and then you think with 15 minutes
01:48to go Scotland can really push on, the crowd was up and there was a feeling that something
01:52could happen.
01:54As it was they probably didn't create quite enough to get the winner but they did enough
01:59to see their result out and get a 2-2 draw but for some unbeknown reason just a really
02:05poor tackle with almost the last kick of the game from Grant Hanley, you can see in his
02:09face he knows he's done something that he did need to do and he's lost the game in that
02:15moment for Scotland and just a really tough one to take for Steve Clarke and everyone
02:19which means it's now one win in 13 which is a record that must stop and stop fast.

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