Darren Fletcher reflected on a Scotland’s calamitous conclusion to the European Championship qualifying campaign and was probably thinking the same as everyone else in the nation. Typical Scotland? “Yes, you could say that,” when asked to reflect on a heart-breaking end to the joust with Poland which saw Robert Lewandowski tap in an equaliser with the last kick of the match to secure a 2-2 draw for the visitors.

With the Republic of Ireland beating Germany 1-0 in Dublin in the other Group D match, it now means Scotland can no longer plunder a play-off place. They will travel to Faro for their final match with Gibraltar on Sunday for a largely empty encounter.

Scotland had been on the back foot against the Poles after going a goal down after a couple of minutes but super strikes from Matt Ritchie and Steven Fletcher turned things around before Lewandowski’s last gasp equaliser.

Fletcher added: “It’s been a disappointing night. We played well after a shaky start. It’s a low blow to everyone in the dressing room. We were unfortunate in some of the games (over the campaign) with deflected goals and things like that. Ultimately we have failed what we set out to do and that was to qualify or at least make the play offs.”