Scotland pick up easy three points against Gibraltar
Scotland 6 Gibraltar 1
It took the introduction of Barry Bannan to do that. The midfielder first set up Rhodes to shoot into the side-netting with a long diagonal ball and his forward run and pass to his fellow substitute led to Fletcher’s second goal in the 77th minute. The Sunderland striker headed Rhodes’ cross into the corner of the net from six yards.
Robba made decent saves from Rhodes and Bannan before the latter set up Fletcher to curl a low shot into the corner from 16 yards in the 90th minute.
Fletcher almost emulated Stein in injury-time but he fired just wide from Bannan’s low free-kick and there was still time for Rhodes to miss a sitter.
Steven Fletcher netted Scotland’s first hat-trick for 46 years as Gordon Strachan’s men bounced back from the shock of conceding Gibraltar’s first competitive goal to record a 6-1 European Championship qualifying win at Hampden.
Fletcher quadrupled his international goals tally to become the first Scotland player to net a treble since Colin Stein hit four against Cyprus in 1969.
Shaun Maloney hit two penalties and Steven Naismith was also on target as the Scots recovered from Lee Casciaro’s equaliser.
