SHAUN MALONEY revealed last night that the training-ground move that led to his stunning winning goal at Celtic Park had failed miserably all week until the golden moment it really mattered.

The Wigan Athletic attacker secured a vital 1-0 win after linking up with Ikechi Anya and Scott Brown from a short corner and bending a magnificent effort into the net with 16 minutes remaining.

Stuart McCall, the Scotland coach, had drilled the players on similar set-pieces all week, but Maloney conceded he had failed to put the ball in the net once before his moment of glory opened up.

"I've been fortunate to score some special goals, but this is right up there and it meant the world to me and the team," he said. "It was a special moment to be part of. I was confident that we would score, but maybe not in the way that we did. It was Stuart McCall, who worked on it. It came off slightly differently to what we had been planning and the way it worked out with Scott's pass was perfect. Our coaches, Stuart and Mark McGhee work pretty hard on the set pieces. They don't come off all the time and they certainly did not come off at training.

"There were different options than me to have a shot, but, given where the ball ended up, I was always going to be the one. It went in zero times in training. You practise hundreds of times and you just kind of hope that you switch off and it happens in a match like it did tonight."

To most observers, Maloney's effort looked as if it was destined to curl inside the far post from the moment it left his boot, but the man himself admits he didn't dare celebrate until he had witnessed the net bulge.

"You get an initial reaction through the connection with the ball, but the difference between that going in and hitting the post is millimetres. You know you have a fair chance of scoring, but it was just pure elation at the time when it went in."

Maloney, though, is refusing to get carried away with thoughts of making it to a first major finals since the World Cup in 1998.

"There were moments in the match in which we had some decent football, but Ireland had chances," he said. "David Marshall produced a brilliant save from Aiden [McGeady] and they hit the bar with a header. Small margins decide these games and I wouldn't say we had Ireland's number just yet. It has been a good start to the group, but that is all. It is completely open. Germany and Poland will think they are favourites and there is nothing between us and Ireland. It is anyone's to grasp, really."

Scott Brown, the Scotland captain, was in no doubt, however, that his side deserved the win against a team whose primary tactic was to stop Gordon Strachan's side from expressing themselves.

"I think Ireland came up with a plan where they tried to play from back to front," said Brown, said Brown, who was heckled by two foul-mouthed Ireland fans who gatecrashed the post-match Mixed Zone before being told to leave by Scottish journalists. "They tried to impose their own gameplan, but we kept trying to get the ball down and trying to play.

"Did we deserve to win? Yeah. Definitely. I think we were the better team from start to finish. We tried to play football and I think that is what the fans keep coming along to see. We worked on the goal on the training field and it was all down to Stuart McCall, really. It is nice when you work on something and it comes off.

"Ireland's gameplan was to try to stop us playing football, but it didn't work. Were they lucky to finish with 11 men? I don't know. There were a few rough tackles but I didn't get a good eye on them."