SFA Performance Director Malky Mackay hopes that Leigh Griffiths’ double against England at Hampden can inspire the next generation of Scottish football talent, as he urged people involved in the game in this country to start talking it up more.

Griffiths provided two memorable moments as he rattled home two free-kicks to turn the match against the Auld Enemy on its head, only for the Scots to concede an injury-time equaliser from Harry Kane.

But rather than dwell on the defensive errors that led to a famous victory being squandered, Mackay thinks we should be accentuating the positives of those glorious few minutes when the national stadium, and indeed the country, were electrified with belief.

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By focusing on such moments, as well as promoting the recent successes of Scotland’s youth teams and showcasing all that is good and unique in our domestic game, Mackay hopes that the nation’s kids can ride that wave of optimism right to the very top.

“Something we must look at is Scottish football taking a hammering constantly, whether it’s from pundits, MSPs, media or someone looking for five minutes of fame,” Mackay said.

“We’ve got to watch how much we hammer Scottish football into the gutter, will it climb back out again?

“I would defy anyone - whether they’re a Leigh Griffiths fan or not - if you’re a Scot who didn’t jump off their feet when he scored that second goal.

“I listened to Martin Tyler’s commentary and couldn’t believe he was going bananas when Leigh Griffiths scored the second goal, the roof was off the stadium, Gary Neville was talking about the best atmosphere he had ever been in, Harry Kane was talking about the stadium.

“We don’t celebrate small victories in football. You just get on with it and say, ‘oh well’. It’s part of our national trait. Celebrate small victories more and more. Little moments like that can enthuse youngsters.

“Our job is to make sure we push that as much as possible and make sure there are regular small victories.

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“You look at what Brendan Rodgers has done at Celtic in the last year, even look at Rangers in the last week popping that little story out the blue that fans can now buy their strip again, and now you can be damn sure 45,000 are going to be buying it. And them funding the new manager to have a go this season because they’re in Europe.

“There’s a lot of good people trying to do a lot of good work in Scotland and trying to make Scottish football better.”

Mackay is not only resolving to be at the forefront of promoting Scottish football, but also to ensure that he is hammering home his message about raising standards right across the board within the game as the bidding process for Project Brave nears its conclusion.

He said: “In terms of best practice I’m going to make sure myself and the rest of my staff know what it is, go and find it and make sure coaching, sports science, medicine, performance analysis and schools, talent ID; we keep striving to make things better and eventually things will evolve.

“If we don’t and keep doing the same things hoping to get different results, then that’s the definition of madness.”

The recent headline-grabbing win for Scotland’s under-20 side over Brazil at the Toulon Tournament is another moment that Mackay feels must be capitalised upon.

He believes that the main driver behind that particular squad doing so well in the tournament as a whole, eventually finishing in third place, is that a high percentage of players within the team are playing in first teams against men on a regular basis.

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“Three of my best players [in Toulon] were from Kilmarnock and have also been playing in Kilmarnock’s first team this year.

“(Greg) Kiltie broke his ankle just before Toulon, but he’s played a lot, (Adam) Frizzell and the left-back (Greg) Taylor have ended up and playing between 20 and 40 players for Kilmarnock this year. Lo and behold, they then become three of our best players at Toulon, playing against Brazil and ending up third in the tournament.

“That’s because they’ve been getting the chance to play against men at first team level. It’s about making sure these ones at 19, 20, 21 go and play against men as quickly as is humanly possible. Whether that’s through loans or a reserve league structure, as long as it means something as opposed to a Development League.

"The more we get doing that, the better the team will be.”