STEVE Clarke praised his players last night for battling back from the brink of Euro 2020 elimination. The new manager feels the national team can travel to Brussels with fresh hope ahead of Tuesday night’s meeting with group leaders Belgium but admitted our hopes of qualification from Group I would have been virtually dead and buried were it not for Oliver Burke’s 89th minute winner against Cyprus. Instead, clinching the three points in such dramatic late fashion might even have been the perfect way to go there with a spring in our step.

Leading with a degree of comfort from captain and Champions League winner Andy Robertson’s sweet strike just after the hour mark, the roof so nearly caved in on Clarke’s Scotland when Ioannis Kousoulos was given a free header from a corner with three minutes remaining. Burke tapped in his first goal for his county some 60 seconds later, though, after his own header came back off the post for a conclusion every bit as dramatic as Richard Gough’s famous winner in the seventh-minute of injury time against Cyprus back in 1989.

“It is difficult for me to be too critical of the players after I asked them to give me a win and they came up with three points,” said Clarke. “It was a game which came with big pressure. We knew, although we didn’t speak about it much, that if we didn’t get maximum points from this game, the group was almost beyond us. So I think we should credit the players tonight and not look too much at one or two little mistakes which we can improve upon.

“There was a lot of good stuff in the game to get us in a position where we were 1-0 up,” the former Kilmarnock manager added. “We had pretty good control of the game and I couldn’t see Cyprus scoring, unfortunately we switched off from a set play and got severely punished for it. The character of the players to fight back and the resilience, it would have been easy for them to feel sorry for themselves but they didn’t and I think that bodes well for the future.”

“There is lots to work on for sure but let’s just enjoy the win.Then we will concentrate on the next game, Belgium away, which is never easy. They are the No 1 team in the world, No 1 ranking, but we can go there with a little bit of hope, without the same pressure that we had tonight. We know we are back in the group.”

There now follows a four-match stretch for Scotland which includes home and away meeting with the Group I’s top two seeds Belgium and Russia. Clarke, who eulogised the contribution of Robertson and Ryan Fraser down that left side, and goal hero Burke, is well aware of what is required.

“It will be a difficult game in Brussels, but we will go there, we are still chasing the points in the group,” he said. “But we are three points behind after Kazakhstan, but we have to try to recover. Our next four matches are Belgium away, Russia at home, Belgium at home then Russia away – from those games we have to find some points. But I think our players can go there with a lot of confidence. Tonight the late winner, although it was a little bit dramatic, sometimes you get a better feeling like that. The players come into the dressing room really lively and looking forward to the next game so I think that is good.”

Clarke, who had words of sympathy for the family of Justin Edinburgh, who passed away yesterday at the age of 49, said he had loved his first taste of leading a team out at Hampden and said all the backroom staff would be cheering on Scotland’s women team in their World Cup opener against England today.

“I would imagine we will all be watching it,” said Clarke. “I don’t know what the players will be doing but me and the staff will be gathering to watch it and we wish the girls all the best. I loved the experience, I loved the national anthem, I loved the Tartan Army, they were good tonight, they got right behind us. I am glad I could send them home with a smile on their faces.”