SHAUN MALONEY feels Scotland's ability to keep possession of the ball was key to their win over Georgia and is evidence of their progress under Gordon Strachan.

The Wigan midfielder created the only goal of the game in 27 minutes when his low drive was deflected in by Akaki Khubutia in a first half the Scots dominated.

And Maloney feels the emphasis placed by Strachan on keeping the ball will reap more rewards in our Euro 2016 qualifying campaign.

He explained: "We had better pass retention and more possession than Georgia. It's something we are not really known for as a nation but we're slowly trying to change that through all the age groups. But the most important thing is the national team.

"The manager has been speaking about it for the last year or so.

"It probably came to fruition on Saturday at Ibrox. It was enjoyable.

"Overall we have to be pretty impressed with the first 70 minutes.

"We should have scored at least a couple more and could have kept the ball a bit better in the last 10 minutes and maybe not attacked every time we got it.

"But we saw the game out and that takes a bit of pressure off. It was huge to get a home win."

Now Maloney and his team-mates head for Warsaw to take on a Poland side on a high after Saturday night's 2-0 win over World Cup winners Germany.

Scotland will travel with confidence after a 1-0 friendly victory there in March courtesy of a Scott Brown goal.

The national team has also chalked up away wins in Croatia, Norway and Macedonia since Strachan took over.

Maloney anticipates a change of approach from the national team boss, who may rely more on fast counter attacks.

He said: "I think it will be a completely different game in Poland. I don't think we will have as much of the ball as we had against Georgia.

"Tactically I think it will be different there but we have been pretty good away from home recently and the pressure will be on Poland to get a result.

"The speed of Ikechi Anya has been huge. We also have the full-backs Alan Hutton and Andrew Robertson. It's a huge advantage to have that pace in our team."