After watching St Johnstone crash out of the Europa League to FK Trakai in Vilnius just a few weeks ago, the LFF Stadium - with its plastic pitch and all - is probably the last place on earth Callum Davidson wants to see right now.

But the Saints assistant manager will make a swift return trip this week in his capacity as a member of national coach Gordon Strachan’s backroom staff, and as perverse as it may sound, he is relishing the prospect.

The artificial surface though remains a bugbear, with Scotland captain Scott Brown sounding his disapproval about being forced to play such a crucial fixture on a sub-standard playing field earlier in the week.

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The plastic pitch offers something of a metaphor for Scotland’s predicament in their World Cup qualifying group going into the fixture. Our hopes remain on dodgy ground, and we can ill-afford any slip up.

Davidson is the best-placed within the national camp to offer an insight into what the Scots will encounter, and the good news is, a fair few of the players have already played regularly on a similar surface in the Scottish Premiership.

“I’d probably say it’s equivalent to Kilmarnock’s,” said Davidson. “It’s not like Hamilton’s. Hamilton’s is pretty flat, it’s obviously used a lot, this one is only used for football matches so Killie’s is the closest.

“It has a wee sort of dome on it, but it was okay. I wouldn’t say this one is the best I have seen but it’s not one of the worst. It’s the same for everybody, but I am not a fan.

“I genuinely don’t think players like playing on them, they like playing on grass and I’d imagine if you ask the Lithuanian boys they’d probably say they’d rather play on grass, but their season in winter don’t allow it.

“The weather gets so cold, that’s why it’s plastic. I think plastic pitches are getting better but I genuinely feel it will go back towards grass again.

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“I think you just have to get them used to playing on it. The game changes depending on whether it is watered or not. If it is dry the ball sticks if it’s wet the ball moves quickly. Also, it’s hard to run with it so you have to let the ball do the work. We’re working on things like that.”

Davidson has some fonder memories of Lithuania from his own playing days, making his Scotland debut in Vilnius back in 1998.

Much has changed for both him and the national side he is now involved with again since. Coming off the back of the World Cup in France, it seemed qualification for major tournaments was the minimum expectation in those heady days almost 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, Davidson never got to experience the feeling of representing his country at a World Cup or a European Championships in his playing days. In fact, he nearly blew his international prospects just a few minutes in.

“It could have been a very short international career,” he said. “I halved someone within about 30 seconds of coming on and got a yellow card. I think it was Ally McCoist who was in the ear of the ref telling him it was my first game.

“I was quite pleased with that because I thought I might be going off. It wasn’t too bad, just a bit of over-exuberance.

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“It was good experience. It was only three months after the World Cup finals in France, playing Brazil and all that. I watched those games thinking I’ll have some of that.

“It’s a tough one not to have qualified since. There’s a lot more teams now. Countries have split up and become different countries so there’s more of them and it is harder to qualify.

“The number of teams to qualify has increased this time which makes it a bit easier, and the two games we have coming up are really important.

“We want to get back there. Definitely the country deserves it, we’ve been hoping to get there for a long, long time.

“It has been amazing on the back of the England game the number of people who have come to speak to me, the number of youngsters, talking about Leigh Griffiths’ free-kicks and how much they enjoyed the occasion. Hopefully it will spur us on.”

If Scotland are to secure second place in the group and a play-off place, Davidson concedes that the only option is to return from Vilnius with a happier outcome than his last visit, and three points in the bag.

“I think it’s a victory we are looking for to give us the best chance to qualify,” he said. “It’s going to be tough, it always seems to be close between us.

“We are hoping to carry on momentum from the last game where the performance of the players was fantastic, especially in the middle of the summer. I was honestly delighted to be involved and to see how much they wanted to win, and it’s no different now.

“Training has been brilliant, they have a will to win and hopefully they can take that into Friday night.”