Anthony Ralston wants Scotland to build on Armenia win

Anthony Ralston’s first Scotland goal in his first start helped Steve Clarke’s side to an opening Nations League campaign win over Armenia and he wants to take the feel-good factor to Dublin on Saturday.

The Celtic right-back was one of six changes made to the team which started the painful 3-1 World Cup play-off semi-final defeat to Ukraine at Hampden Park last week.

On a rain-soaked night at the national stadium, Ralston, winning only his second cap, lifted some of the gloom which surrounded the fixture when he headed in a Stuart Armstrong cross after 28 minutes.

Nottingham Forest stopper Scott McKenna doubled that lead with a header from a John McGinn corner five minutes from the break, also notching his first goal in dark blue, for a comfortable 2-0 Group B1 win.

Clarke’s side will get ready to take on the Republic of Ireland at the weekend before a trip to Yerevan to take on Armenia again and Ralston said: “We’ve got another game just around the corner so it’s just a case of recovering as a team and getting ourselves ready to hopefully get another positive result.

“We’ve managed to get a positive result off the back of a disappointing result so it’s important we continue that into the next game and keep pushing on as a team.

“We understood what happened in the last game.

“We rectified it as a team on the training pitch, got back to work and came here knowing we needed a positive result and a positive performance, which we did.”