Matt Phillips enjoyed an unusual shift as a centre forward for the Scottish national team, despite failing to find the back of the net.
The West Brom winger was chosen to lead the line by interim coach Malky Mackay but wasted a couple of promising opportunities to score during Thursday’s 1-0 defeat by Holland at Pittodrie.
He said: “I thoroughly enjoyed playing that role. It was good.
“The boys put some good balls through for me. Obviously there are times when I can do better with my back to goal, but I enjoyed the experience.
“I don’t know what will happen with it in the future. As I’ve said before, I’m just delighted to be in the reckoning and I was delighted to start.
“I feel I had two opportunities myself – ones that I would take on another day. But I will take the positives that I got myself into the right positions.
“A couple of years ago, I might have got my head down about it and let it bother me. But I look upon it as a positive that I played a different role and managed to get a couple of opportunities.”
Phillips, who won his ninth cap against the Dutch, was impressed by Aberdeen’s Ryan Christie and Celtic midfielder Callum McGregor, who both sampled international football for the first time at Pittodrie.
He added: “We have the players to create for whoever is playing up front. I think you could see that against Holland when we played some really good stuff.
“Ryan and Callum were both brilliant on their debuts. As a team, we stuck to the game plan and I think we did well.
“There is definitely a lot of competition for those roles in behind the striker and that is what you want.
“There is an opportunity to build for the next qualifying campaign and everyone will be fighting to get a shirt.
“We had a good four or five days together and everyone played their part. Even the boys who didn’t get on the park against Holland were very positive about the place. We were all right at it.
“I think we can definitely take optimism for the future. There were a lot of new faces involved in the game. And it was the same towards the end of the last World Cup campaign.
“The lads who have come into the squad have been great and everyone wants to stay involved for the next friendlies and the next campaign.
“Craig Gordon was saying he didn’t have a shot to save against Holland. And we had a few opportunities.
“Overall I think we gave a good account of ourselves and we’ll take positives from it.”
