Scotland U21s 2 Austria U21s 2

By Ewing Grahame, St Mirren Park

They now trail leaders Holland by four points. Yet in spite of being considerably smaller than their opponents, the young Scots enjoyed the better start and could have been three up inside the opening 10 minutes.

Heinz Lindner was at full stretch to push away a curling free-kick from Scott Allan, who was later cautioned for simulation as he attempted to con the referee into awarding a penalty.

Then Jordan Rhodes, who scored a hat-trick in Luxembourg on Thursday, twice failed to hit the target after being left with only the goalkeeper to beat.

As so often, though, the home side paid the penalty for their failure to capitalise on their early dominance when the Austrians scored in their first attack of note.

There seemed to be no imminent danger when Andreas Weimann collected the ball just inside the Scots' half but Danny Wilson was slow to close him down and the midfielder's swerving shot from 25 yards beat Adam at his left-hand post.

Weimann almost punished the hosts again in the 34th minute when his teasing cross to the far post was headed goalwards by Deni Alar, whose effort came off the back of the inrushing Ryan Jack without the Aberdeen full-back knowing a great deal about it.

Three minutes later Jordan atoned for his earlier profligacy when he glanced home a Gregg Wylde cross from six yards.

However, slack defending allowed the Austrians to restore their advantage before the break, with Richard Windbichler given time to cross for the unmarked Alar to nod home.

Scotland equalised a second time when Lindner could only parry Peter Pawlett's point-blank effort and Rhodes' header from the rebound looped over him and into the net.

The closest Scotland came to a winner was a cross-shot from Wylde which deceived Lindner but came back off his crossbar.

Match details

Scotland U21s (4-4-1-1): Adam; Jack, Perry, Wilson, Hanlon; Russell (Pawlett 60), Wotherspoon, Palmer, Wylde (Griffiths 74); Allan (MacDonald h-t); Rhodes. Subs: Ridgers (g), Cole, Booth, Armstrong. Booked: Allan.

Austria U21s (4-2-3-1): Lindner; Hart, Winbichler (Schimpelsberger 68), Dibon, Dilaver; Hopfer, Holzhauser; Weimann, Schwab (Elsneg 76), Drazan; Alar (Tadic 76). Subs: Radinger (g), Schopf, Klem, Schutz. Booked: Winbichler, Weimann.

Referee: A Vucemilovic-Simunovic (Croatia).

Taken from telegraph.co.uk