Scotland coach Pete Steindl is convinced his side can shake off its nearly-men tag and become winners.

The Scots will head home from Dubai today after their bid for Intercontinental Cup glory ended in disappointment against Afghanistan.

Steindl’s side went down by seven wickets to land a second runners-up medal of the year following its near miss at the World Cricket League.

But, while the pain of defeat is still raw, Steindl is backing his men to bounce back in 2011. He said: “Right now we are still absolutely gutted that we haven’t won and that we are flying home without the trophy.

“It is what we came here to do because we wanted to make amends for losing the final of the World Cricket League. But at the same time I think we’ve probably surprised a lot of people over the last 12 months in the way that we’ve come out and played our cricket.

“We’ve shown good fight and character throughout the year and when we sit back and have a look at the season in its entirety there have been far more pluses to have come out of it. We’ve made a couple of good steps in the right direction although we are nowhere near where we want to be yet.” Steindl has performed major surgery on the side following its dismal showing at last year’s World Cup qualifying tournament.

His new-look team has started climbing back up the rankings and the coach added: “I want us to be working towards the top of the associate tree and competing against Test nations.

“I think we are making strides towards that – we did well in one-day cricket in the World Cricket League and surprised a few teams in that by finishing second. Likewise in the I-Cup we have always been competitive and we’ve been pretty effective. It’s disappointing that we didn’t take our chances in Dubai but I know we’ll bounce back from it and it’s important to learn from the losses as much as from the wins.

“The average age of the squad here is about 26 and in the space of two years that has dropped from about 31. I think if these guys get the right opportunities and if they work hard themselves and are given the right competitive cricket structure to develop their games then I know we will start winning tournaments.”

Gordon Drummond, who has twice seen rival skippers lift silverware, added: “You can say it’s a great effort to be in finals but that’s not enough for us anymore. We want to be in them to win them and that is the next step for this side.”

Meanwhile Scotland will play an extra game in their next I-Cup campaign after ICC officials announced a return to an eight-team format.

This season’s tournament involved the six leading associates plus Zimbabwe A. However, the Africans will drop out of the next event to be replaced by two sides from the second division of the World Cricket League.

However, the next major international challenge for the Scots is to reach the 2012 T20 World Cup.