Steve Clarke: Scotland ‘gutted’ by late penalty decision

Steve Clarke insists his Scotland players were left gutted at the “very soft” penalty award which gave Poland a last-gasp 1-1 draw at Hampden Park.

The home side took the lead in the 68th minute when Kieran Tierney headed in a free-kick from captain John McGinn for his first international goal and it looked like the Scots were on their way to a seventh straight win.

However, in the third of three added minutes Irish referee Robert Hennessy judged Scotland keeper Craig Gordon had fouled Krzysztof Piatek inside the box and the substitute slotted in his spot kick.

Wales got through to meet either Scotland or Ukraine in the play-off final after beating Austria 2-1 in Cardiff.

Clarke said: “It was a very soft penalty.

“You saw the players on the pitch, they wouldn’t let it go. Of course they are disappointed, we want to win.

“They are out there representing their country, they know they are on a good run, they want to try to make another little bit of history, seven wins in a row would have been fantastic.

“We have another game in Tuesday night in Vienna we want to go there and get back on the winning run again.

They are disappointed to not win that game and I think we did enough and I thought we deserved to win- Steve Clarke

“They are disappointed to not win that game and I think we did enough and I thought we deserved to win the game but we move on.”

“It was a good performance, some decent chances in the first half, maybe not so many  in the second. We got ourselves into a lot of good positions.

“They got a soft penalty, John McGinn could have got one before the Polish one which would have made it 2-0 and game over.

“VAR was not involved tonight, it probably would have straightened out both decisions.

“It would have been