Murty happy his team are spared some harsh words

THREE months ago, Rangers would have lost this game. Lost it with something to spare. Perhaps as recently as three weeks ago, Graeme Murty might have thought twice about laying into players low on confidence and susceptible to cracking under pressure.

Much has changed of late. As interim head coach Murty, a man progressively proving his worth with each passing victory, knows only too well.

Admitting that his players — and they’re his at least until the end of the month — had spared themselves a half-time tonguelashing by scoring two quickfire goals to go in 2-1 ahead, the promoted Under-20s coach insisted that he now has no hesitation about letting rip.

‘The lads saved themselves a little bit from some harsh words at half-time,’ he said.

‘The goals came from the first two passages of play where we used the ball properly.

‘So they dug themselves out of a hole. That wasn’t me, just them using the ball properly.

‘Some players in there have been pilloried at times, given stick. They’ve found a way to stand up to it. These are still just baby steps on where we want to get to. But the goals changed the team talk.

‘Yes, I can criticise. As long as it’s done constructively, not to wear the player down.

‘It’s never, ever just to make myself feel better or dig the player out.

‘The players know we didn’t reach the heights. But they managed to find a way.

‘Wins just breed confidence. I’m delighted with the three points. But I’ve just said that I endured that more than enjoyed it. The lads showed good spirit, a battling nature.

‘Hibs imposed themselves upon us and we reacted for long spells. We didn’t deal with the ball well enough to alleviate the pressure.

‘You need resilience. We invited a lot of pressure on to ourselves. Players had to make challenges, win headers.

‘We did that — although we did ride our luck at times. We had chances to cause problems on the break but were too loose and slack with the ball. When you do that, you invite pressure.’

Asked if being so roundly criticised for much of the season had affected some players, Murty conceded: ‘You can see that in the way we approach the game. As soon as a pass goes astray, it affects us for significant periods. But wins have a wonderful effect on the changing room.’

Murty laughed when asked about the performance of one Rangers goalscorer on the night, declaring with heavy emphasis: ‘Josh Windass is one of the most frustrating people you will ever meet.

‘He has so much quality. His left-foot strike, the accuracy and crispness, that’s just brilliant.

‘But he does things that leave you tearing your hair out. It’s up to us as a coaching staff to work on those. If he didn’t do those things, he could have a fantastic career.’

Asked if Windass might be better on the left wing than through the middle, Murty considered the question for a moment and then declared: ‘He’s more suited to a free role, damaging our opponents — rather than damaging us!’

The caretaker head coach could afford to crack a few jokes about his own team. Nights like this put the winners in a magnanimous mood.

The celebrations among the visiting fans were long and loud, their joyous disbelief stretched to new limits by a second-half siege of medieval brutality.

Hibs created chances enough to win comfortably, with winger Brandon Barker alone hitting both posts, but couldn’t find a way past a Light Blue line gradually made less thin by the constant addition of bodies.

The home side should also have had a penalty, a stonewall shout for handball by David Bates. But what would this fixture be without a bit of controversy? Murty adopted the Arsene Wenger position, claiming not to have seen the incident clearly — but admitted: ‘The reaction of the crowd tells me something happened.

‘If they’re given, they’re given. If we’ve got away with one, so be it.

‘The players are sitting in there agreeing that we didn’t hit the heights.

‘But winning here, at a place like this, while not playing our best, you’d take that.’