I blame Jock Stein for our failure to get to England 66'.
11 days prior to the Poland game the writing was on the wall, when we lost 2-3 to Northern Ireland.
It was the defence of an out of form Alex Hamilton, Billy McNeill and Eddie McCreadie that looked suspect and tired in the latter part of that game, and conceded a last minute winner for Northern Ireland, yet the only changes Stein made for the Poland game was to replace Dave MacKay and Jim Baxter with Pat Crerand and Billy Bremner, with Willie Johnston coming in for John Hughes.
And sure enough, it was that tired defence that gave up two goals in the last five mins to Poland, in a game that we had been winning comfortably for the previous 70 odd mins.
Prior to this game, Poland were effectively out of contention, having failed to win any of their 3 opening games, drawing at home with both Scotland and Italy, and losing away to Finland.
Both Scotland and Italy had taken 5 points out of 6.
Stein did correct it for the home game v Italy one month later, and replaced all three at the back with Greig, McKinnon and Provan, and Scotland gained a fantastic 1-0 win on the night.
Still though, that Polish defeat left us needing to beat the Italians in Italy to qualify, or to get a Draw to force a Play Off.
For that return game four weeks later, we had to do without Jim Baxter and Bill Brown who were injured, and Denis Law, who was still unavailable.
On top of that, Jock Stein decided to drop Alan Gilzean and Willie Henderson in an attempt to beat the Italians at their own game, by being totally defensive, and going for a 0-0 draw to force a Play Off!
Incredibly, Stein opted to play Jim Forrest as a right winger! and John Hughes as a Left winger with no central striker.
Bizarrely he gave the No.9 Shirt to Ron Yeats, but had him operate in the only position he could play, as an extra Central defender.
Yeats had won only 1 Cap previously, and that was in a 2-3 defeat to Wales, where we gave up two goals in the last 3 minutes. All three goals were attributed to mistakes by the debutant Ron Yeats!
Stein chose to bring back Adam Blacklaw (Burnley) in goal, instead of Bobby Ferguson (Kilmarnock). Blacklaw had made only 2 appearances for Scotland some two and a half years earlier (conceding 6 Goals).
He also reinstated McCreadie at Left Back, and he was at fault for the Italian's opener.
Needless to say, the Italians won easily 3-0.
Trying to out defend the greatest defensive nation in the world was a tough lesson for Stein, one that he corrected with his club side eighteen months later, but unfortunately it was a very sorry and bitter lesson for Scotland.
