Anthony Ralston’s first Scotland goal in his first start helped Steve Clarke’s side to an opening Nations League campaign win over Armenia and he wants to take the feel-good factor to Dublin on Saturday.

The Celtic right-back was one of six changes made to the team which started the painful 3-1 World Cup play-off semi-final defeat to Ukraine at Hampden Park last week.

On a rain-soaked night at the national stadium, Ralston, winning only his second cap, lifted some of the gloom which surrounded the fixture when he headed in a Stuart Armstrong cross after 28 minutes.

Nottingham Forest stopper Scott McKenna doubled that lead with a header from a John McGinn corner five minutes from the break, also notching his first goal in dark blue, for a comfortable 2-0 Group B1 win.

Clarke’s side will get ready to take on the Republic of Ireland at the weekend before a trip to Yerevan to take on Armenia again and Ralston said: “We’ve got another game just around the corner so it’s just a case of recovering as a team and getting ourselves ready to hopefully get another positive result.

“We’ve managed to get a positive result off the back of a disappointing result so it’s important we continue that into the next game and keep pushing on as a team.

“We understood what happened in the last game.

“We rectified it as a team on the training pitch, got back to work and came here knowing we needed a positive result and a positive performance, which we did.”