PAIN OF LAST YEAR DRIVING WALLACE ON
NEARLY 12 months ago, Lee Wallace was a broken man as he faced up to hitting his lowest ebb as a Rangers player. Sitting before the nation’s media, he admitted being left mentally drained by the Light Blues’ failure to win a Championship title they had been expected to claim with comfort. Missing out to Hearts by 24 points and later failing to gain promotion, too, it was the darkest spell of his career and one he conceded would be hard to lift himself from. Now armed with a 12-point lead over their closest rivals Falkirk with just nine games of their campaign left, the Ibrox side have all but secured their place back in the top flight. Having been to the brink, Wallace maintains nothing will slow their charge to the league crown now — not even the prospect of next month’s Scottish Cup semi-final with Celtic. ‘It’s a great draw and it’s a game the boys will look forward to,’ said Wallace. ‘It’s a match we all want to be playing in. One of the highlights of my career is my goal against Celtic in the derby four years ago and that’s something which will live with me. ‘The League Cup game against them last season was one of the biggest disappointments I’ve encountered and we didn’t do ourselves justice that day. ‘We’ll look to do better this time but the game is a long way off yet and we’ve a league to try to win first. ‘That’s our primary focus. We have some tough fixtures coming up and we are only thinking about them just now, nothing else.’ It was in a Press conference in mid-March last year Wallace admitted his and Rangers’ standards had dropped to a level he wasn’t happy with. They have been restored this season to the point a title win won’t be enough on its own for the 28-year-old. He wants to secure it with style and a healthy winning margin. He added: ‘I remember the Press conference I spoke at last March well and I was quite down at that point. I was probably more down than I’ve ever been at Rangers. ‘I was critical of myself and my team-mates. It was justified because I don’t think we were doing particularly well then. ‘We have been enjoying this season and it has been great. We hope to beat Hearts’ points record.’