The Wolves striker's dream debut turned into a nightmare when he missed a glaring sitter in front of goal that would have secured victory in the World Cup qualifier, which ended goalless.

Despite numerous television replays of the moment he blew Scotland's chances, Iwelumo is determined to remain upbeat and insists the reaction he has received in the last 24 hours has been nothing but positive.

He now hopes Burley will keep the faith and that his fledgling international career is not over almost before it has begun.

"I'm a positive person," he said.

"I'm sure I will look at it over and over again but it's been and gone now. All I can do is keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully I'll get another chance to go out there and show the Tartan Army what I'm all about.

"People have come over and said not to worry about it and they're looking to other parts of the game.

"It's fantastic to hear and it definitely gives you that little lift that's very much needed.

"These things happen in football and I've still got a lot of football ahead of me.

"I'm sure there will be many highs and many lows – and hopefully the highs outnumber the lows."

Hampden may have been stunned into silence following the miss but the Tartan Army quickly threw their backing behind the big striker for the remainder of the game.

The mood was in stark contrast to England's 5-1 win over Kazakhstan, during which Ashley Cole endured booing from his own fans following his mistake which led to the visitors' only goal.

"After the miss, I couldn't believe the reaction from the fans and that just shows you what they are all about," said Iwelumo. "The Ashley Cole situation is one that I can't really comprehend. If England have fans doing that, it makes no sense to me.

"They won 5-1, what else can the England team do? They are a bunch of fantastic players and Ashley Cole is a world-class player.

"If people are judging him on what they read in the papers, that's wrong. It's about what he does on the pitch and that can't be argued with really."

Despite this latest set-back, Iwelumo refused to give up on Scotland's qualification hopes.

"A draw is better than a loss," he said. "Holland will go to Norway now and that's a massive game. A draw would be a perfect result for us and then it's up to us to go to Holland and maybe have a shock result there.

"We still have a lot of football to play, a lot of points to get, and we have to be positive."

Steven Fletcher insists no-one in the Scotland camp is pointing the finger of blame at Chris Iwelumo following his disastrous debut.

Fletcher and Iwelumo were both thrown into the action early in the second half as the Scots vainly battled for a win against Norway at Hampden.

Fletcher said: "Chris was full of apologies after the game but it's not the big man's fault, it was just a missed chance.

"Anyone can miss chances, I know that myself, and it was just unlucky. We are a team – we are not going to point fingers at anyone. He came on and did well for us."

Those views were echoed by defender Gary Caldwell, who insisted: "It's a team game. We win together and we draw together. It's just one of those things.

"It came at him very fast and he couldn't sort his feet out.

"But I thought he played well.

"He was a handful when he came on. We were a bit more direct and it paid off for us, we had more chances when he was on the park."

And Caldwell backed the Wolves striker to bounce back from the sitter and find the back of the net for Scotland in the future.

He added: "He is a striker and he is always going to miss chances. The best players in the world miss chances.

"It shouldn't be a problem for him, he will come back from it and I'm sure he will score goals for Scotland."