David Weir: With seven games remaining, yesterday was a blow that knocked us back, but not out

With seven games remaining, yesterday was a blow that knocked us back, but not out

YOU can't dress up the situation we now find ourselves in as anything other than the one we were fearful over.

And the predicament we would find ourselves in if we don't get a result on Wednesday in Iceland is something to be dreaded.

We would give ourselves a mountain to climb if we didn't have three points after this away double-header to start our World Cup qualifying group.

But we have to turn these concerns on their head and say maybe the heightened pressure we are now under going into the Reykjavik game can really draw the performance that's necessary from us.

My overriding feeling, and I'd hope the overriding feeling of everyone involved and the country at large, is that we are still well in this group.

I think there is so little between the teams that each country will take points off each other. So, though there are no great positives we can take from a match we desperately wanted to take something from, we have to accept that what has happened has happened, and move on.

I hope we don't allow ourselves to be caught up in a blame culture that involves pointing the finger for the events in Skopje at referee Pavel Kralovec. I know we had a couple of big shouts for penalties in the second half but, if taking an objective view, I don't think you could deny the Czech official had a very good game.

He was strong, was alive to what the Macedonians were up to from very early on, and sought to give the benefit of the doubt to defenders so players didn't start falling over easily in order to win fouls.

Maybe, in both the cases of Kenny Miller and James McFadden, that approach didn't serve us well, but let's not get into that old trap of seeking outside excuses for any possible shortcomings on our part.

I'd like to think the lads in the dressing room won't allow themselves to be side-tracked in this fashion.

In away games in European football, whether at international or club level, there is always the faintest dividing line. We lost a goal at a rank bad time and it really unsettled us and gave them something to defend. It was a great save by Craig Gordon from the free-kick leading up to it and some will argue that one of our players should have been first to the ball once it had rebounded off the post. But, in those incidences, you are absolutely in the lap of the gods. If the ball falls to a striker, it is a goal. That isn't about positioning or anticipation, but a break not going your way.

And perhaps the difference between this game and some of the tight ones we won in the last European Championship campaign was that the breaks simply didn't go our way yesterday.

A new manager, George Burley, changed the team around, played two strikers and was unfortunate that his game plan was thrown off course by such an early goal. But there was no lack of determination or effort from the players to force their way back into the contest during a second half they controlled and we can take that as a sure sign our players will give every last ounce of energy in the bid to qualify for the 2010 finals in South Africa.

Indeed, though there had been all sorts of talk about the sapping heat in Macedonia, it says a lot for our guys that they finished the game looking far stronger that their opponents.

Admittedly, the home team will feel that they surrendered the initiative in order to protect their lead and then simply put down a challenge to our players to take that from them, which ultimately they couldn't do.

There has been much praise doled out to the Scotland team and now, inevitably, there will come hefty criticism. Our players must absorb that and come out intent on proving a point on Wednesday. In only being an eight-game group, prospects in the section might appear to crystalise all too rapidly. But we must not lose sight of the fact that it isn't the number of points you have after one or two games but after all eight that matters.

No doubt some will already say it was a mistake to have a double-header comprising two away games to start off our campaign.

Certainly, I don't think that sort of scheduling has been tried in recent times. But every other permutation that has been tried hasn't paid off, so who is to say a year down the line we won't be looking at two home games to finish off and declaring it a smart move as we seek six points to take us through?

Let's see yesterday for what it was – a blow, but one that has only knocked us back, not knocked us out.