Credit Where Credit is Due When You're Between A Rock and A Hard Place

You knew the truth of the matter as soon as Gordon Strachan used his flash interview for television to say all the credit went to Gibraltar after their defeat to Scotland at Hampden on Sunday.

It is a classic transfer of emphasis used by astute managers who know their team has not performed to anything like the best of their capabilities but are absolutely certain they won't be sharing that piece of knowledge with the general public.

How can Gibraltar possibly deserve all of the credit when they've just shipped half a dozen goals?

Or when they remain bottom of Euro 2016 qualifying Group D with no wins, and no draws, from five games?

They have a goalkeeper from panto land and an outfield made up of players who would not be given professional contracts by any club from any division in the SPFL.

The fact they scored their first ever goal in international football is s source of embarrassment to Scotland, but even the extent of that embarrassment was minimised by wee Gordon when he made a joke about Craig Gordon and Alan McGregor thinking he was a great manager for not picking them and letting David Marshall have the red face that goes with the black mark for losing a goal to a team of part-time, amateur players.

If the same goal had been lost to a proper team the manager would have used the serrated edge of his tongue and drawn on his well known capacity for the withering phrase to sum up his feelings on defensive negligence.

But when you're in the business of trying to get Scotland to their first major final for eighteen years then any manipulation of the facts is allowable. Who cares about what assessment you put on a win so long as you get one on the same night that the Republic of Ireland may have done us, and not themselves, a favour by scoring an injury time equaliser against Poland?

Stuart McCall would have felt that way at the end of Rangers' win against Cowdenbeath twenty four hours earlier.

Rangers scored an early goal in the second half after somehow contriving to spend the first forty-five minutes without laying a glove on the Fife side who are second bottom of the championship table.

They then went to sleep in the classic fashion so often witnessed this season, but were comforted by the knowledge that the opposition hadn't had so much as a shot at goal since the match started.

It was a demonstration of ineffectiveness which prompted me to use a summariser's eye for a chance by saying to Clyde 2's Game On commentator Archie Macpherson that I would buy him dinner if Cowdenbeath suddenly regained consciousness and scored a goal.

I would estimate that less than ten seconds had elapsed between the end of that sentence and the beginning of my astonishment as the so called Blue Brazil scored a goal out of nothing other than Bilel Moshni's occasionally erratic style of defending.

I am now looking for a restaurant to sponsor Mister Macpherson's dinner, knowing his capacity for an agreeable meal and the great man's appreciation of a decent wine list.

I should have done what Gordon did and wait until time up before saying that the away team's goal was scored so much against the run of play it might as well have been a mirage.

Rangers, like Scotland, were provoked by the shock of a goal against them and proceeeded to belatedly emphasise the difference in quality between themselves and the upstart opposition.

Both club and country can now take much from what they achieved at the weekend.

Now it is about the battle between blue and green at international and domestic level.

Scotland will know that if they go to Dublin in June and beat Martin O'Neill's Republic of Ireland side they will have dealt the home team's chances of qualification for France next year a fatal blow.

Rangers will have observed Hibs' second league defeat in a week, this time against Raith Rovers in Kircaldy, and sensed that the psychological advantage could be turning in their direction where the play-offs to decide who is part of the Premiership next season are concerned.

Allan Stubbs' side could now be in a position where they are relying on their Edinburgh rivals Hearts to do them a favour and relieve Rangers of six points in the two games that remain to be played between the clubs before the end of the season.

But when the title's been won and the championship party's already been thrown inside Tynecastle strange things can happen, and that's not a camouflaged way of hinting at conspiracy theories.

It's a fact of life that players who have worked as hard as those employed by Hearts, with only one league defeat the whole season long, can subconsciously take their foot off the gas when the job of winning promotion has been done.

We'll know on Sunday if that is the case.

Hearts will go to Ibrox and re-visit the ground where they put Rangers to the sword on the first day of the league season and put down a marker for the rest of the championship campaign.

The extent of their resolve between now and the end of that same season will be able to be measured by what happens this weekend.

Scotland will need to wait weeks before they can visit the Aviva Stadium and see if they can pick up where they left off against Gibraltar. But time passes quickly when you're having fun and hope springs eternal where qualification for the Euros is concerned.

Just don't tell us Gibraltar deserved all the credit for losing 6 - 1, that's all.