A NEW DAWN FOR SCOTLAND by Glenn Gibbons

ONE of the many constraints that govern Craig Brown’s work is that, in undertaking the redevelopment of Scotland’s national football team, he is not permitted to hire a wrecking ball.

This unsubtle means of demolition may be favoured by those members of the public who have cultivated a deep disaffection with the international game, but the manager is forced to employ a more discriminating method of dismantling and replacement.

During the overhauling process, too, the concurrent need to produce acceptable performances and results ensures that Brown’s manipulations have to be opportunistic, taking advantage of those rare occasions when it is possible to experiment without sustaining potentially irreparable damage.

These times can be surprisingly rewarding, or they may confirm Brown’s own conviction that a player who has, for unfathomable reasons, attracted a clamour of support, does not have the right stuff. Sometimes,” he has told me when discussing someone the fans have mistaken for a redeemer, “I put them in so that they can play themselves out. When they are seen to be substandard, it puts an end to the public demands.”

The final outing of the Euro 2000 qualifying series against Lithuania afforded the kind of afternoon in which encouraging portents are more significant than the scoreline.

On these days, positive returns tend not to be as plentiful as the exposure of failures, but Don Hutchison has proved to be an exceptional “discovery” since coming on as a substitute against the Czech Republic at Celtic Park last March and then marked his first start with an impressive performance, including scoring the winning goal against Germany the following month.

The tall, powerful and very clever Everton midfielder’s enforced absence from the matches in the Faroes and in Prague during the first week in June appears the more frustrating when set beside his subsequent contributions. It is reasonable to hypothesise that he would have made the difference between victory and a draw in Toftir and could have helped avoid defeat in the Czech capital.

Hutchison’s exquisite strike against Lithuania brought his total to three from four full games, a goals-to-appearances ratio that is alien to Scotland players. The most prolific scorer in the current squad, for example, is John Collins, with 12 from 56 caps.

But it is his intelligence and sureness of touch in supplying the frontline, as well as his physicality in midfield, that makes him such a prize. Brown had decided after Hutchison’s second start – when he scored the opener in the 2-1 victory over Bosnia in Sarajevo – that the player had already established himself as “a pick”.

Even if the result turned out to be what was required, last Tuesday’s game gainst Bosnia at Ibrox was surely the poorer without the suspended Hutchison’s subtle menace. The midfielder having been suspended after picking up two cautions in previous qualifiers.

Alex Ferguson insists that only Teddy Sheringham’s lack of genuine pace prevents him from being a truly great player and Hutchison has a similar claim, although both compensate sufficiently to make them invaluable. Hutchison’s name, along with that of Paul Lambert, will be entered on Brown’s team lines before any other’s.

The match against Lithuania represented a chance for others at least to take the first steps towards similar status and, from that perspective, proved to be a satisfactory exercise. In those areas where there is a real chance for newcomers or relative novices to dislodge those in possession – in central defence and in attack – there was unmissable promise.

Even when all allowances are made – a meaningless match against weakened opponents who are not highly rated anyway – a certain encouragement could be drawn from the performances of Gary McSwegan and Mark Burchill in the frontline and Paul Ritchie and Brian O’Neil at the rear.

Burchill’s progress would be much quicker, as Brown stressed, if he were a regular member of Celtic’s first team, but, despite his inactivity, he seems to be making good progress. He was extremely unfortunate to have his first international goal disallowed when McSwegan was mistakenly ruled offside.

That move alone – Hutchison’s perceptive, sweeping pass from right of midfield to left of the visitors’ box, McSwegan’s precise square pass to Burchill and the striker’s right-foot drive on the run – was sweeter than anything the Scots had produced against Bosnia.

It was matched later, when Hutchison provided the finely-controlled through ball for Burchill, which forced Andrejus Terskinas to concede a penalty. Burchill’s low shot came off Pavel Leus’s left-hand post and Hutchison followed up with a composed, deliberate, left-foot chip into the net off the rebound.
Ritchie delivered a master pass from midfield to Burchill down the inside-left channel, which allowed the Celtic player to feed his partner, McSwegan, and the Hearts man first-timed the ball past Leus for the second. The third Hearts player, substitute Colin Cameron, completed the scoring with a late volley from Kevin Gallacher’s deep cross from the left.

“There’s no reason for us to fear whoever we get in the play-off, including England,” said Brown afterwards. “We’ve shown against the best teams in the world recently – France, Brazil and Germany – that we won’t be easy for anybody.”

A comfortable win over Lithuania does not give cause for tub-thumping, but it should help put the block on predictions of calamity.

Scotland: Gould, Weir, Davidson, Lambert, O’Neil, Ritchie, Dailly, Burley (Cameron 46), Burchill (Dodds 79), Hutchison, McSwegan (Gallacher 83). Subs not used: Sullivan, Calderwood, Durrant, Gemmill.

Lithuania: Leus, Skerla, Skinderis, Tereskinas, Zutautas, Zvirgzdauskas, Stumbrys, Mikalajunas, Razanauskas, Mikulenas, Dancenko. Subs not used: Padimanskas, Maciulevicius, Vencevicius, Fomenko, Ksanavicius, Dziaukstas, Grudzinskas