If Wales succeeds in reaching the World Cup, there will be little regrets about ugly victories against the side sandwiched by Mauritania and Namibia in the FIFA ranking.
And yet there will also be a necessity to improve an achievement that threatened to sap in part of the early mood around Craig Bellamy's work in the post.
Because this was a bit of a trudge, until Rabbi Matondo scored in stop time and finally a small light between Wales and Kazakhstan. The previous 90 minutes were spent in a state of frustration, only after the early strike from Dan James was leveled by an Askhat Tagybergen penalty, and when they struggled to build on Ben Davies's header for 2-1.
Given that the Welsh team remains irritated about how they flopped in Qatar in 2022 and openly talked about following the following year in North America, there was a considerable relief that Matondo removed any feeling of danger at the end.
“It's a positive result – I knew it would be a difficult game,” said Bellamy. “I didn't feel that we were living on the edge, but I felt it would be a tough game and I still felt that it was a tough game.”
That could all be true, but it was how Wales struggled in the first 45 minutes to break a stubborn, attack-vendor side that was stationed at 110 in that FIFA list. Bellamy preferred to mark that the 'patience' of his team won the day, although it is fair to ask you how much of it should have been needed against one that came into account here on the back of seven defeats.
There is a reasonable amount of quality in the Bellamy team, and certainly not a shortage of pace in Brennan Johnson and then James, but there was also a remarkable lack of inventiveness when the challenge of a parked bus was presented. With 73 percent of possession about the competition, it might ensure that they were not wiser to use it.
A little more nous will be needed in Macedonia on Tuesday, and we can multiply for Wales' involvement in June with the striking side of Group J, Belgium. For the time being Bellamy remains unbeaten by seven games and has already succeeded in increasing expectations.
“Winning is a habit, but unfortunately it is also losing,” he said. “We are on a decent run at this current moment, but we still have a tough game on Tuesday, I am completely aware of that.”
The theoretical inequality of this match is written on the team magazines – two of the Kazakh XI play their club football in Russia and the rest was pulled from their domestic top flight. Even in the absence of names of world class in the era after the ball, Belamy had four men from the Premier League, one of Nantes and a trio of the Leeds United side at the top of the championship.
For a while the game seemed to stay with expectations.
The opener of James came from a corner routine that had failed but was not deleted, so that Ben Davies and Liam Cullen could double and dismiss Askhat Tagybergen while trying to take his way out of the area. The loose ball was hit by James and he ended with the help of a considerable deflection for Alexandr Mourchkin.
From there, the chances of Joe Rodon and Johnson, a reasonable fine profession from James was ignored, and an under-hit pass by David Brookes killed the chance to send Sorba Thomas to one on one. The loser came from those blips.
It fell on the half hour, when Connor Roberts turned his back on a cross of Islam Chesnokov and the delivery hit his left arm. Bellamy thought it was 'very hard', but due to the last definitions of these laws, a fine was fair.
Karl Darlow got a foot of Tagybergen's Kick Up the Middle, but the ball dripped over the line.
Bellamy was described as 'Mr Calm' by Davies for his resting reaction and the reaction was a quick goal of the Tottenham defender after the restart. He received the header on a set piece after the keeper of Kazakhstan, Alexandr Zarautskiy, waped to Thomas's in-swinging corner and missed. Matondo, for James, tapped the third.
Davies said: 'We have all been to such games where you can go as favorites and there are expectations to walk over these teams, but it is never the case.
'They are a proud nation that tries to win the way we and they fight for everything. They made it difficult. '
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