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Kenny: Walter moved Gers around pitch by remote control as nine men won the Cup
KENNY MILLER played more than 700 games in a glittering, trophy-laden career.
But in only two of them – as far as he can remember – was his team reduced to nine men. One, earlier this season when turning out for Partick Thistle against Ayr, ended in a 3-2 defeat.
The other? Well, that happened a decade ago to the day and is safely stored in Miller’s memory bank as one of the most satisfying of his career.
Rangers had gone to Hampden as overwhelming favourites to win the League Cup at the expense of St Mirren who hadn’t won a trophy for 23 years. But all that changed with two flashes of red flourished by referee Craig Thomson.
His namesake Kevin was first to go, eight minutes after the break, for a challenge on Saints’ Steven Thomson. And when Danny Wilson committed a professional foul on Craig Dargo as the Saints sub promised to burst through on goal with 20 minutes left, suddenly the Paisley outfit looked massive favourites to end their long search for honours.
But then Walter Smith took over. Standing on the edge of the touchline he moved his depleted team as if by remote control.
This was FIFA 10 without an Xbox. And just as the nine men of Rangers looked like being forced into an energy-sapping 30 minutes of extra time they burst forward to score a goal that catapulted Miller into the club’s folklore.
Now, 10 years on and speaking from Australia, where he is carving out the next stage in his career as assistant coach to Newcastle Jets, the 40-year-old Miller said: “It did feel like he was moving us about by remote control.
“At that time the gaffer was allowing Coisty (Ally McCoist) and Kenny McDowall to get some managerial experience by taking the Cup games.
“He might have been in the stand for the first half but when things took a turn for the worst with the sendings-off he had to pull rank and get down on to the touchline to start controlling things. He was pulling us about, getting us to plug holes and fill gaps whenever he saw them appear.
“There’s just so much space you need to cover. Having one man down is bad enough but when it’s two you just have to graft away and on that day we ended up playing two or three different positions.
“We had to find a way to attack and get forward and when we didn’t have the ball we had to get back behind it and make life as difficult as possible for St Mirren.”
Rangers stayed in the game until six minutes from time when they won it. Miller said: “We had a team full of good players but first and foremost everybody was prepared to work hard for each other and that came to the fore that afternoon.
“I’ve watched that goal a million times. Big Davie Weir releases Naisy (Steven Naismith). I can still feel the effort I had to put in to drive myself forward from the halfway line!
“It was really tough because we had to play so much of the game with 10 men, then with nine.
“It was a fair bit of time to graft away, try to stay in the game and hope, just hope, that when that one chance comes along you can take it. Sure enough it panned out that way.
“If it had gone to extra time it would have been real hard work to win it. Thankfully the chance came along and fortunately my header landed in the bottom corner.
“Even when we went down to 10 men there wasn’t a great urgency about St Mirren’s play. They still didn’t want to overcommit. They were cagey.
“But when we went down to nine men maybe they did smell blood. There’s no doubt they had overcommitted men going forward on that particular attack. They left us 3 v 2 in our favour. Nacho Novo and I were 2 v 2 in the box.
“Naisy must have travelled 50-60 yards unchallenged and my run to get on the end of it started at roughly the halfway line and I wasn’t picked up either. St Mirren won’t thank me for saying it but it was rank bad defending.
“It gave us the chance and you have to punish them. It was the perfect cross, right on to my head and I managed to plant my header just where I wanted it to go.
“Sometimes things go against you and that particular moment went against St Mirren.”
The 40-year-old is convinced Smith’s guidance from the sidelines was the difference.
Miller added; “He wasn’t barking out instructions all the time but in breaks in play he was calling us over and telling us what to do.
“He told me to fill in at right midfield when we didn’t have the ball. Just get back and plug a gap was the instruction. He was moving us all around to suit the situation.
“He was living every moment of it and when the camera goes to him he’s heading it in!
“He’s won everything there is to win. When you’re representing him and representing that club it’s ingrained in you. You need to find a way to win, whether it’s 11 v 11 and you’re up against it, whether it’s with nine men in a cup final.
“You’re turning up to win a trophy and if you don’t all that hard work goes out the window.
“Having him on the touchline was massive. His experience and his know-how gave us a belief we could do it. We trusted him and knew everything he was saying was pretty much going to be Gospel.
“He just had a way. He could see the game for what it was. And that one will live in the memory of everybody involved in it.”