Scotland 3 Lithuania 1: McManus puts Scotland in the mood for French test

Napoleon asked that his generals be lucky, rather than good. Alex McLeish will be pondering ahead of this week's trip to Paris that he fits that bill after watching two of his substitutions rescue Scotland's Euro 2008 ambitions yesterday at Hampden Park.

Shaun Maloney and JamesMcFadden were thrown on in a dramatic response to Lithuania cancelling out the lead, supplied by Kris Boyd's first-half goal, when Saulius Mikoliunas of Hearts fashioned the mostoutrageous dive to allow Tomas Danilevicius to net a penalty on the hour. With just 13 minutes left, the Scots were facing the prospect of dropped points before meeting France in a Group B race that has no margin for error. However, Maloney conjured up a goal for StephenMcManus with his first touch and then McFadden struck an audacious finish.

"It really hurts you when players do that," said Darren Fletcher,the Scotland captain, who conceded the penalty against Mikoliunas. "He was going down all the time. It was embarrassing."

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The warm, sunny day symbolised the place McLeish's players hold in the affection of the Scottish public. The mantra all week had been to ignore the glamorous date on Wednesday and focus on securing three points. That demand was illustrated by a high-tempo start by Scotland. However, Lithuania rode out the storm and carved out the first chance after 14 minutes when Mindaugas Kalonas hit a right-foot volley just over the bar afterAlan Hutton had misplaced a clearing header.

Just five minutes later, Scotland ought to have broken the deadlock but were denied by the agile goalkeeping of Zydrunas Karcemarskas. Fletcher's fine delivery had picked out Garry O'Connor, whose firm header from 12 yards was turned on by Boyd. His effort was repelled by Karcemarskas, breaking to Lee McCulloch, whose follow-up header was also pawed clear.

Just as Scotland appeared to be losing their way, Boyd struck the seventh goal of his short international career to put McLeish's team in front after 31 minutes. O'Connor had drawn a foolish foul from Tomas Zvirgzdauskas on the right touchline and that allowed Fletcher to whip in an early free-kick that was met by Boyd, who had anticipated the early release to plant a divingheader past Karcemarskas.

The euphoria around Hampden soared over the next 10 minutes. Twice Boyd came close, watching Karcemarskas claw away his volley as it bounced up, and then snuffing out the strikeras he raced through on his own, before ending the duel by hacking Boyd down outside the box, for which he was booked.

Lithuania changed their mindset at the start of the second half and chose a far more offensive set-up, bringing on the Hearts pair Mikoliunas and Audrius Ksanavicius. Mikoliunas swiftlybegan to torment Hutton, whose defending was naive as he frequently dived into situations. However, diving when practised by forwards is a dark art rather than a rash one, as Mikoliunas proved. The Hearts winger has a reputation for going down easily in the Scottish Premier League and he embellished that here as he dived from outside the box into it as Fletcher tried to shadow him. The referee was duped and pointed to the spot, from where Danilevicius drilled his kick down the middle.

McLeish's players were incensed, and that collective sense of anger proved ample motivation. The Scotland manager threw on McFadden, Craig Beattie and Maloney, and the Scots restored their lead in the 77th minute. A short corner from Jay McEveley picked out Maloney, and he bent in a cross that went through a ruck of players to McManus, his former Celtic colleague, who buried a left-foot volley from six yards.

Hampden erupted in relief, but seven minutes from time the explosion was one of acclaim as McFadden inscribed a memorable 11th goal for his country. The Everton player gathered the ball from Boyd and ghosted past two defenders before thrashing a 25-yard shot into the net.

See if Scotland can get a result in France on Wednesday, Sky Sports 1 from 7.30pm (kick-off 8pm)