GORDON STRACHAN reckons it will be easier to prepare for Scotland's Euro 2016 qualifier against the Republic of Ireland than it was getting his side ready to face minnows Gibraltar at Hampden.

No, the national team boss is not still punch drunk from seeing the men from the Rock score their first-ever goal in competitive action.

Neither has he over-celebrated after watching his players respond to win 6-1 and remain very much in the hunt for a place in next summer's finals.

It's not even the case that Strachan has got a bit over-excited, having watched the Irish keep Group D ultra tight by scoring a late equaliser to ensure the lead enjoyed by Poland remains at just a single point.

The fact is, planning to face such a well-known foe as Martin O'Neill's side - who Scotland defeated at Celtic Park in October - keeps Strachan in his comfort zone.

Having to figure out the best way to approach dismantling the unknowns from Gibraltar did not.

Which is why he openly admitted: "I think it will be easier for me, as the manager, to prepare for the game against the Republic of Ireland than it was for the match against Gibraltar.

"There will be more facets regarding what we have to do in terms of attacking and defending.

"For the Gibraltar game, I might have concentrated too much on attacking.

"But, there you go, that's the way we thought it was going to be.

"I had an idea about how I wanted us to play. And, to a certain degree, it worked, as the six goals show.

"But I thought we were a little bit more comfortable in the second half after we made the changes."

The truth is that, for the game in Dublin on June 13, and for the rest of the qualifiers barring the final match, away to Gibraltar, Strachan will feel confident going with the tried and trusted 4-2-3-1 system which he has been developing and fine tuning since he took over as national team manager job two years ago.

On Sunday, he felt it was more appropriate to switch to 3-2-3-2, with only central defender Russell Martin expected to keep David Marshall company while full-backs Alan Hutton and Andy Robertson bombed forward.

The balance never seemed right, never more so than when Lee Casciara took full advantage of players being out of position to score the goal which sent Gibraltar's 30,000 population into raptures and left Strachan stunned and bereft of words.

"We warned the players what can happen if you take liberties, and I thought we did take a bit of a liberty there," the manager reflected, his frustration still clear.

"We assumed that we were going to win the ball, clear it and retain possession.

"We assumed wrong.

"We'd had a warning just before it when they got down our right and got in a cross-cum-shot, which David Marshall kept out.

"On reflection, I think that when David saved that, all our lads thought, 'Well, that's their chance.'

"I don't know if that is definitely what happened in their minds, but that's how it looked to me."

As ever, the real frustration for an international manager is that he will have to wait months before he can sit down with the players and analyse in detail what transpired through that historic 90 minutes which also saw Steven Fletcher become the first man to score a hat-trick for Scotland since Colin Stein in 1969.

Strachan was delighted for a striker he has stood by, despite the fact he had only scored one goal for his country - and that was six years ago.

The manager played his part in providing the platform for the goals to flow more easily by calling an impromptu huddle of the attacking players during a break in play just before half time.

Within a couple of minutes, goal No.4 had been scored by Steven Naismith as the result of the kind of incisive play from James Morrison and Ikechi Anya that Strachan had demanded.

"I was asking them to play the ball through people quicker," he explained.

"Even strikers who were being marked, they have the ability to take the ball in when it is played into them.

"But we were going too square when we had the ball, and I wanted them to change that, which they did."

Now that the circus, which playing Gibraltar for the first time brought with it, has left town, Strachan can settle down to make his plans for the visit to Dublin at the end of the season.

At the halfway point in the qualifying campaign, and having played everyone once, Scotland have amassed three wins and one draw.

It has been a sterling series of games on the back of the opening day defeat to world champions Germany, who sit on the same 10-point mark with the Scots.

Poland are still the team to catch, but, like the Germans, they have to come to Hampden in the Autumn.

Scotland's other three games are all away - to the Irish, Georgia and, finally, Gibraltar, who play their matches in neutral Portugal.

If qualifying stopped today, Scotland would be on their way to France as the best third-placed side in any of the groups.

But there's a lot of football still to be played, and it remains very tight for the two automatic qualifying places.

Even the play off spot looks like going down to the wire with only three points covering Poland in first position and the Republic of Ireland in fourth.

Strachan - who will decide at the end of May or start June if he needs to bring in a replacement for coach Stuart McCall - refuses to try and speculate on how many points it will require to get over the line.

But, if the next five games can yield an average of two points, as the first five have done, he will be confident of being very much in the mix.

"I think that, if we can get the same again in the second half of the campaign, that will be terrific," he insisted.

"If they can guarantee me the same performances in the next five games, I would take that."