STRANGE times indeed. Donald Trump in the White House, Boris Johnson as foreign secretary and now Scotland supporters - without a hint of irony - cheering the goals by Eric Dier and Marcus Rashford which beat Slovakia at Wembley. This was the night Hampden roared when England scored. It must all be some sort of sign.

For all the fears that the Auld Enemy might conspire in a new way of leaving the Tartan Army on the outside looking in as a major championships ticked round - last night at one stage was looking like their first qualifying defeat since a 1-0 loss to Ukraine back in 2009 - previous history alone suggested Scotland were well capable of mucking this one up all by themselves. That they didn’t is down to a group of players whose confidence has grown exponentially since the start of the campaign and an extremely limited Malta side. Both results came in. Like the mug punter who has just bet the house on the four-way accumulator, the dream lives on.

These so-called minnows of world football aren’t what they used to be you know. Something unusual is clearly going on in the round ball game when little Luxembourg are capable of travelling to Paris and frustrating Kylian Mbappe and co. and the Faroe Islands are racking up record points tallies. Heck, even Northern Ireland seem to be progressing effortlessly to their second successive qualification.

So visitors to Hampden on Monday night were wary and rightly so. Okay, so Scotland were imperious - and quite frankly recognisable from the halting, hesitant outfit which started the campaign - in Vilnius in Friday night. And Malta had just won two of their 99 World Cup preliminaries to date, and failed to win in these islands in their history. But their infuriatingly limited tactics had frustrated England for almost an hour on Friday night, and they were still in the game making a nuisance of themselves in the dying stages. Coach Pietro Ghedin tried the same trick here, an exercise in epic bus parking which saw them order jobbing players such as Sam Magri of Ebbsfleet Town to sit deep and man the trenches, leaving their demoralised strikers to break some 70 yards on the occasions when they attempted to spring a counter attack.

It did little for the game as a spectacle but Scotland have bigger things than that to worry about. For most of this campaign, the prospect of making it to Russia next summer has seemed tantalisingly beyond our reach but suddenly it is back in our hands. Beat Slovakia at Hampden in October and Slovenia in Ljubljana and second place is ours. Surely a play-off place will come with it.

Ironically, it turned out the one thing the Maltese couldn’t deal with was a cross. It isn’t just free kicks on goal which Leigh Griffiths can wreak havoc with. For the second successive game, his corner kick delivery led directly to a priceless opening goal, an inswinger which left Malta goalkeeper Andrew Hogg frozen on his line and allowed Christophe Berra to power in a fine downward header, the first serving Hearts player to do score for his country since Andy Webster in a friendly against the USA back in 2005.

Gordon Strachan had stuck with the same team which had performed so well and his critics could hardly argue. Having now secured 10 points out of the last 12 available, and not last a game all year, the chemistry in all areas of his team appears to be coming together..

If beating Lithuania was all fun and games, this was an unpleasant chore. Stuart Armstrong, James McArthur, James Forrest and Andy Robertson picked up where they left off by peppering the opposition goal and the enterprising Matt Phillips almost got a goal with a low right foot shot, but it wasn’t until just seconds after the break that the Tartan Army could breathe easy. Subsitute James Morrison got on the end of one of Andy Robertson’s bursts down the left, and when his close range shot rebounded off the post, who should be lurking in a suspiciously offside position but Griffiths. Remarkably the linesman didn’t flag. It was that kind of night.

Further source of good cheer resided in the fact that none of the five Scotland players walking a tightrope, fell off, leaving them free for bigger challenges ahead. This was particularly impressive in the form of skipper Scott Brown, a man who admitted yesterday with plenty of practice of being in this situation. He exercised caution to avoid a caution with no visible let up in his usual ferocity, and despite the best and consistent efforts of Alfred Effiong to get him into the Danish referee’s little book.

Okay another goal or two wouldn’t have hurt but Griffiths finished tamely when played in down the right and Phillips blazed over too after good work from Robertson. The only blot on the landscape all night were injuries to Leigh Griffiths and Charlie Mulgrew. Having finally found his best team, how Gordon Strachan would love to have it available for the two matches which really will define our fate in October.