CRANKING UP THE PRESSURE
Tynecastle trip more daunting after draw
RANGERS 1
McCulloch 72
ALLOA 1
Buchanan 78
AS dress rehearsals for the big day go, this was the equivalent of stumbling on to the stage, belching into the microphone and then setting fire to the curtain.
If, come May, Rangers are seeking entry to the Premiership via the play- offs rather than through automatic promotion, then this ghastly performance will be impossible to flush from the memory.
What an opportunity this was for Ally McCoist’s men to ratchet up the pressure on Hearts by cutting the lead to a single point by the time they kicked off i n their teatime clash at Falkirk.
Instead, they travel to Tynecastle next Saturday six points adrift of their title rivals. Rest assured, unless the improvement is radical and immediate, that gap will become a nine-point chasm by the time that game is done.
A run of eight straight wins — including six clean sheets — had given Rangers a sense of real momentum going into this one. Not that you would have noticed it at the weekend.
One-paced, stodgy and devoid of purpose all over the park, they looked like they might just bludgeon their way to victory when Lee McCulloch latched on to Lewis Macleod’s corner with 18 minutes remaining to take full advantage of a rare defensive slip from the visitors.
Justice was done six minutes later, however, when Kevin Cawley was granted a free run at the home defence resulting in Steve Simonsen parrying his shot into Liam Buchanan’s path. The striker’s deadly finish was in keeping with that of a player who’s now scored in six successive matches.
Let this be said without ambiguity: Barry Smith’s men were richly deserving of their second draw with Rangers this season. Brave on the ball and canny in possession, they did more than merely frustrate the full-timers in what was their third game in eight days. In that sense, they were everything Rangers were not.
McCoist would rather this game had been put on the back-burner in keeping with t hose matches previously s cheduled during international breaks. And perhaps now the club’s board — at whose behest it was played on Saturday – will wish they had banked it. The ‘loaning back’ of Macleod from the Scotland party back-fired, with the midfielder devoid of the dynamism we’ve seen of late. Yet he was not alone in that regard.
David Templeton contributed next to nothing on the opposing flank while Nicky Law and Ian Black were ineffective and posted missing as the Wasps equalised.
Steven Smith, deputising for Lee Wallace at left-back, couldn’t do right for doing wrong while Kris Boyd was simply never at it once Craig McDowall blocked his early effort from 12 yards.
Asked afterwards if a similar performance at Tynecastle would result in defeat, McCoist was not being flippant when he replied: ‘Unless they are worse — but the chances of that are slim.’
After a purple patch which offered boundless positives, there will be much soul searching at Murray Park this week.
‘I honestly don’t know what happened,’ said goalscorer McCulloch.
‘We were scoring goals freely and had a great clean-sheet record. At times we passed the ball all right and created chances in the first half. ‘One moment of madness after we had scored our goal cost us.’ Boyd was the chief sinner with misses either side of the interval but Macleod and Templeton ought to have done better, too, with their openings. Substitute Sebastien Faure missed a great chance to snatch a win at the death but his miscued volley from inside the six-yard box summed up Rangers’ day. What was already an epic encounter in the capital has now assumed greater importance. ‘Next week is a massive, game for us,’ McCulloch added. ‘Today we’re disappointed and that makes next week a little bit more i mportant t han what it already was.
‘Tyne castle is always a hard place to go. It’s going to be a good atmosphere. We’re playing against a good Hearts team and it’s a chance to put this performance right after what we did wrong today.’
Now three points above the play- off spot at the wrong end of the table, Smith’s side are looking above themselves as opposed to below.
‘We went through a bad spell but we’re now undefeated in five,’ said Wasps defender Michael Doyle.
‘We’ve done better against the bigger teams. I think that’s just because we work so hard and are good on the counter-attack.’