Scotland kept their Euro 2008 dreams on track with a 3-1 win at home to Lithuania at Hampden on Saturday to go second in Group B.
Kris Boyd, Stephen McManus and James McFadden scored the goals to lift Alex McLeish's side into second place in their qualifying section, although a Tomas Danilevicius’ penalty had made it 1-1 early in the second half.
In addition to splitting group favourites France and Italy at the top of the section, the result handed Scotland the perfect boost ahead of Wednesday's game against the French in Paris.
Backed by a capacity 52,000 Hampden crowd, Scotland had made an energetic start to the match and pressed forward at every opportunity in the opening stages.
Lithuania, though, had the first real effort on goal in the 14th minute, with Mindauga Kalonas' first-time shot from 20-yards flying wide of goalkeeper Craig Gordon’s post.
In the 19th minute only tremendous goalkeeping by Lithuania's Zydrunas Karcemarskas kept the score level.
Darren Fletcher's deep corner was headed towards goal by Garry O'Connor but Boyd was lurking inside the six-yard box and got his head to the ball to divert it towards the roof of the net only for the Dinamo Moscow stopper to somehow claw the ball away from underneath his bar.
The ball rebounded straight to Lee McCulloch but his downward header was again stopped by Karcemarskas at point-blank range.
But in the 31st minute Scotland took the lead, after Birmingham City striker O'Connor was flattened by a crude challenge from Lithuania's Tomas Zvirgzdauskas on the touchline.
Manchester United's Fletcher showed quick thinking to curl the ball into the six-yard box, while the visitor's defence were still organising, and Boyd was on the same wavelength to anticipate the cross and send a diving header into the corner of the net.
Before half-time Boyd could have completed his hat-trick. In the 36th minute he caught Rangers teammate Alan Hutton’s cross on the volley from 12-yards but Karcemarskas flung himself to his left to push the ball away.
And three minutes later Fletcher's clever pass put Boyd clean through on goal but again Karcemarskas did well to block the striker's shot.
Lithuanian coach Algimantas Liubinskas made a double switch at the break - with Andrius Velicka being replaced by Hearts teammate Audrius Ksanavicius and their fellow club colleague Saulius Mikoliunas replacing Igoris Morinas.
And with only 10 minutes gone in the second half the visitors used their final substitution, when former Hearts striker Edgaras Jankauskas, now of AEK Larnaca, replaced Marius Stankevicius.
These changes gave Lithuania the impetus they were looking for and in the 61st minute they were back on level terms.
Slovenian referee Damir Skomina awarded the visitors a dubious penalty, when Mikoliunas went to ground after rounding Fletcher, and Bologna’s Danilevicius duly converted the spot-kick, sending Gordon the wrong way.
Scotland manager McLeish made a double substitution of his own in the 76th minute, replacing O’Connor and Lee McCulloch with Craig Beattie and Shaun Maloney and the move paid-off immediately.
From a corner-kick Fletcher spotted Maloney had not been picked-up running onto the field and rolled the ball into his path.
The Aston Villa forward curled the ball towards the back post where his former Celtic teammate McManus was waiting to rifle into the top corner from six-yards.
And in the 83rd minute another substitute, Everton’s McFadden, who had replaced Gary Teale in the 68th minute, skipped inside his marker before blasting an unstoppable shot from 25-yards beyond Karcemarskas.
