IN last week's column I said I wondered where Scotland's next victory was coming from.

I certainly didn't think then that it would be in Zagreb, or as comfortable as our 1-0 win over Croatia was. It was clear beforehand that to have any chance we would have to do our jobs well, get the shape right, defend well and take every chance that came our way. We did all of those things.

Having said all that, without taking anything away from our boys, because it was one of our biggest victories and one that Gordon Strachan needed big time, Croatia were nothing short of a disgrace on the night.

I don't know what their preparations were or what their mindset was. But Mario Mandzukic looked like he had been enjoying himself too much after the Champions League final and the way they approached the game played totally into our hands.

One thing Scots are good at is holding on to a lead, making ourselves difficult to beat and forcing opponents to work hard to score against us. But they seemed to think all they had to do was turn up.

They thought it didn't matter what pace they played at, whether they had the ball or not. When they didn't have the ball, they didn't think they had to press the game because Scotland would give them the ball back. Admittedly, our back four aren't generally that great at keeping the ball, but if you allow them time, they can do it.

So we kept it well and passed it into midfield. Then even when Croatia did have the ball, they wanted to pass it nice and slow, so that suited us down to the ground as well. I am delighted they had that mindset, where they thought Scotland were a poor team. The boys more than proved them wrong. We had a makeshift side out, but I thought we were exceptional at what we did.

Perhaps the real plus point of the night was Russell Martin. How long have we been saying that we need a centre-half coming through? Easily two years at least. We maybe even need two. But one would be a start.

Martin is not even a centre-half, but you know what, he will do for us in that position. He is confident, versatile and I must admit I have wanted to see him in there for a while. He is Premiership standard, so let's get him in there. I am not going to say right now that he is a gem, and is going to be our next centre- half of the future, but we needed to find someone and we have. I thought for a rookie partnership, he and Grant Hanley were excellent.

Hanley had another fantastic game though he is still liable to make a mistake, which he has to cut out, but Martin for me was the top man, alongside James McArthur, and maybe wee Shaun Maloney, who is loving his football right now. All night he was saying: "Just give me the ball and I will be positive," and that was what set up the goal.

I have always liked Robert Snodgrass, ever since I played against him when he was a young boy. The coaching staff felt afterwards he didn't play that great, but he worked hard. That is what all the forward-thinking players did, especially the wide ones. They were really structured, hard to break down and put in a shift.

We also saw good signs from Alan Hutton. We all know he can get forward and beat players, I expect that from him, but for years I have wanted him switched on defensively. I don't know if it is because he was playing against a big nation, and knew if he was slack we were going to get a doing, but he sorted out his defensive work last night and if he can do that on a more regular basis he can be a real star again.

It puts a smile on our faces, because the nation needed a lift, a sign that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and hope that we were finding some sort of structure.

But a win is all it is. The biggest message to send out is that we are not getting carried away. We have hard games coming up against England, Belgium, Croatia and Macedonia, so there is still a lot of work to do going into the next campaign.

Now Leigh Griffiths is back to Wolves, the entire starting XI play their football outwith Scotland, and while the likes of Scott Brown will come back in, I don't care where people are playing their football, as long as we have a competitive Scotland team on the pitch.

I have always said we have got good players, not great players, but we have not been competitive. The two Wales games were really disappointing, and Serbia was a terrible performance. The last few years we maybe believed we were better players than we really were. But this kind of thing is our best bet, all about team shape, hard graft, communication, a bit of technique and ability. Let's build on it.

JOHNNY Russell has to make sure he goes to the right club. I am not saying he is the same as Chris Maguire, David Goodwillie and Scott Allan – who have all struggled for regular first- team football since moving to England – but he needs to go to a club where he is going to play and develop, not somewhere where he might play every so often then drift out and end up going on loan somewhere. I wouldn't mind him going to Derby – Craig Bryson has also gone down there and thrived – but if he goes to a bigger club then I think he could struggle.