SWEET REVENGE

Christie winner helps Scots banish Dublin debacle — and sets up Ukraine crunch By

Scotland 2

Rep of Ireland 1

RYAN CHRISTIE last night savoured a slice of revenge after Scotland atoned for defeat in Dublin by beating the Republic of Ireland in their crunch Nations League clash at Hampden.

Steve Clarke’s men, who lost to the Irish 3-0 in June, trailed to an early strike from their captain John Egan but rallied in the second half thanks to Jack Hendry’s header and Christie’s cool penalty eight minutes from time.

The victory, coming three days after the Scots defeated Ukraine 3-0 at the national stadium, put them back on top of Nations League Group B1 ahead of their final group match against Oleksandr Petrakov’s side in neutral Poland on Tuesday night.

Last night’s victory means Scotland only

need a point to top the group, earn promotion and a play-off spot for Euro 2024.

Christie was relieved to make amends for the drubbing in the Irish capital.

‘We came into the game desperate to win it,’ said the Bournemouth attacker. ‘We wanted to come away from this camp with three wins.

‘We started on Wednesday with one and then we wanted to put things right after what happened in the summer in Dublin.

‘We let ourselves and the fans down over there, so we wanted to put that right and thankfully we did.

‘Yeah, it was a little bit of revenge. It was a disappointing summer but we wanted to flip it on its head in this camp and try and pick up some positive results. We’ve got some positive results, so we can’t get much better than that. We go again on Tuesday.

‘In the first half we found it tough to control the game and to be fair they played well, like they did over there. We had to make some tweaks at half-time and we showed some character to get back into the game. The subs that came on did brilliantly.

‘There is a lot of confidence to take into Tuesday.’

Christie claimed afterwards that he had full faith in himself to slot home the penalty with the clock ticking down.

‘Thankfully the gaffer has kept me on penalties over these last few games,’ he added.

‘There have been a few shouts but we haven’t seemed to have got one. When the handball was given, I fancied myself. I was waiting for the keeper to dive out the way. Thankfully he did and we got the win.’

Scotland, who lost full-backs Kieran Tierney and Aaron Hickey to injury, produced a poor first-half display but eventually found a spark, with Hendry netting his first competitive goal for his country four minutes after the interval.

‘It was a good game,’ he said. ‘Both teams went for the win. It’s always competitive, Scotland against Ireland.

‘At half-time we spoke about how we can hurt them and thankfully we did that second half.

‘I had some momentum (for the equaliser) and followed it into the box. Ryan picked me out and I got on the end of it. It was a good time to score, it changed the momentum of the game.’