Shankland soaks it all in after silencing doubters with strike on his first start

NO pressure? No such thing. At least not for Lawrence Shankland — a player who knew exactly what to expect if he’d drawn a blank on his first international start. Couldn’t even score against San Marino? Well, that tells you everything… Fully aware that his elevation from the Championship to the national side hasn’t won the support of absolutely everyone in Scotland, the Dundee United striker admitted: ‘If I didn’t score tonight, people would have been saying: “He’s no good”. The fact that it was San Marino was something I ignored — and, thankfully, I scored anyway. ‘Definitely, this has been one of the best weeks of my life. Just being called up for the national team was great. ‘Then, the other night against Russia, I came on much earlier than anticipated. ‘Obviously, the result was disappointing but it was still a great experience for me to play in a stadium like that in front of a massive crowd. ‘And I’m delighted with tonight. I knew I would get chances. San Marino let teams have the ball and I knew the boys would create things for me. ‘It wasn’t the prettiest goal I’ve scored, but I’ll take it.’ Scoring at Hampden having once been something of a habit for former Queen’s Park player Shankland (right), there was probably an inevitability about him finding the net last night. Eventually. Worth the wait? Sure. After all, no-one could ever describe the new Scotland No9 as an overnight success. He’d worked long and hard for this moment, battling his way up the ranks to earn a surprise call-up from Steve Clarke while still playing in the second tier. So it hardly mattered to him that he had to snarl, scrap and splash his way through 65 minutes of suffocating marking and variable service before finally opening his international account in a first start at this level. On a night when it was hard for anyone to impress on a surface that went from waterlogged to swamp-like with a good 20 minutes remaining, Shankland did just fine. Perfectly okay. In a meaningless match, he probably only showed one moment’s hesitation. Not in front of goal, even though he probably had time to ponder all of life’s great mysteries before tucking away his first goal for Scotland. When confronted by a San Marino player asking for his game jersey at full-time, though, the forward instinctively shied away. And then he remembered one all-important detail. Namely, that the waterlogged shirt he’d started a sodden, soggy night in was already safely tucked away in the home dressing-room. ‘We’d worn two because it was soaking,’ laughed Shankland, the 24-year-old adding: ‘The boy asked me, so I had to swap it.’ Despite the group campaign being already over, this still represented a triumph for the forward — a chance to prove he belonged at this level. Shankland, who played the full second half in last Thursday’s 4-0 loss in Moscow, said: ‘I wasn’t going to approach it as if I shouldn’t be here. ‘I’ve been playing with great players and that can only make you better. I want to be involved in every squad now. I’m not getting carried away, though. I’ll go back to my club and keep doing what I can and hopefully keep up the form that got me in this squad. ‘Tonight, it was obviously lesser opposition but we still had to get the job done. ‘We went about the game professionally and moved the ball about quickly.’ The good news for Shankland is that playing for Scotland won’t always be quite so stodgy as this. There will be better nights at the national stadium, both more challenging and more enjoyable for a player who likes to play on the shoulder, run channels and link with his midfield. Against a San Marino side lying deeper than Barry White’s voice, Jacques Cousteau’s wellies and even Gregor Townsend’s problems, Shankland barely had room to breathe. If leading the line for Scotland normally involves long, lonely shifts of feeling outnumbered and up against all sort of odds, this would have been more akin to travelling on the Tube at rush hour. For Shankland, it was a new twist on the Hampden experience. Something he should know all about, having been a team-mate of Scotland captain Andy Robertson when the pair were cutting their teeth at Queen’s Park. Shankland likes to say they have both reached the same destination through different routes. He’s scored at that end of the national stadium a few times. Possibly even imagined, during those amateur days, that he was living the dream for Scotland. On this evidence, he has possibly done just enough to earn another start — or two — next month.