I just KNEW it would get PHYSICAL

Dorrans expected Motherwell to act tough after his days with West Brom

THERE’S an apocryphal yarn about a Rangers club official phoning John Greig’s wife one dark Saturday evening to inform her that her dearly beloved would be returning with a serious injury.

‘I’m afraid John will be coming home with a broken leg,’ said the nervous voice at the end of the line. ‘Really?’ replied Mrs G. ‘And whose leg is it?’

Whether the conversation actually took place is beside the point. As fine a footballer as Greig was, his bone-crushing reputation elevated his stature to a new level in an era when men just felt no pain. You’d have given a penny or two for his thoughts after Rangers’ meek defeat to Motherwell.

That the Steelmen, Ryan Bowman in particular, crossed the line in terms of permissible physicality is beyond all debate.

But there were elements of self-pity about the tone of Rangers’ complaints in the immediate aftermath. Almost a degree of surprise.

Since time immemorial, Rangers sides have had to fight for the right to play their football. Did they seriously expect Motherwell to pull out a feather duster and try to tickle them into submission?

Graham Dorrans is not about to join the carping chorus. Not when he spent much of the past decade with the shoe on the other foot. Throughout much of his time with West Brom and Norwich, the importance of winning the battle before the war was not lost on him.

Asked if Scottish football was more physical than elsewhere, he replied: ‘Maybe a little bit. No disrespect to anyone but everyone wants to be at clubs like Rangers or Celtic. So when you’re at those clubs and come up against the big teams, you raise your game and do what you need to do.

‘When I was at West Brom, we played against Manchester United and Chelsea and knew we had to be physical. If they were on their game and we were on our game, they were going to win because they had better players. I think it’s the same at Rangers.

‘When we come up against most teams, they raise their game and are more physical. They try a little bit harder. I’ve been on the other side of the fence, so I know what we’re coming up against.’

What opposing teams are coming up against these days is a Rangers side who have long lost their sheen of invincibility. Sunday’s defeat was a surprise but hardly a shock. After six years without a major trophy, Rangers are beginning to forget what the view from the winners’ podium looks like.

The self-confidence that used to be their preserve is now seen in others. A failure to win three games in a row under Pedro Caixinha is symptomatic of a long-standing malaise. Big game failure is now the norm.

‘I don’t know why,’ shrugged Dorrans. ‘We’re working hard. We’re training leading up to these games and we have got a plan, but at the minute the plans aren’t coming off.

‘We haven’t done very well in big games. Hopefully, we can put that right. We need to just keep working hard and stick together.’

The latest reverse prompted ex-Rangers star Charlie Adam to claim that the backgrounds of the players was an issue. The Stoke player Tweeted during Sunday’s game: ‘More British players needed at Rangers ASAP’.

But Dorrans (below), one of just two Scots to start for Rangers at the weekend, believes the ability of those wearing Light Blue is the only thing anyone should be looking at.

‘We just need players who can go out and win games,’ he said. ‘Whether they are from Portugal, Colombia, Brazil, anywhere in the world, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re British. We need winners. At the moment, we’re not winners because we’re not winning games.’

Asked if he felt more homegrown players would help establish the team’s identity, Dorrans replied: ‘I think there’s a bit much made of that. The foreign boys know this club is renowned worldwide. You don’t just hear about Rangers when you’re about to sign. On Sunday we weren’t at it. We weren’t up to matching them and we paid the price.’

Two experienced heads conspicuous by their absence were Lee Wallace and Kenny Miller.

Presently sidelined with a groin injury, there is little Caixinha can do about his captain. Miller’s case is more mystifying. Omitted from the past three squads despite being, in the manager’s words, ‘one of us’, it can be safely assumed there is more to his circumstance than poor form.

Dorrans, understandably, isn’t about to take issue with what is ultimately his manager’s prerogative. But nor will he sit there and claim the veteran striker hasn’t been missed.

‘They’ve been here a long time, so they know what this club is all about,’ he said. ‘Obviously, Lee’s injured and Kenny’s not been picked but they are still in and around the place and are trying to keep spirits high. People like that know what it’s all about. Maybe we do miss them a little bit.

‘It’s not for me to go into the details of what’s happened. That’s for the manager to deal with whatever situation there is. What I will say is Kenny has come in every day and has trained like a true professional. He’s done the job he’s always done.’

If it comes to pass that Miller has played his last game for the club, he will at least move on with a treasure trove of memories to sustain him.

Dorrans, the lifelong supporter who took until his 30th birthday to live the dream, doesn’t yet have that luxury. ‘I have been desperate to come here for the last ten years,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult to come here in the circumstances we’re in and losing on Sunday puts pressure on us. But I think we’re good enough to win against Kilmarnock (tonight at Ibrox) and go on a run and get the club back to being successful again.’ Dorrans worked under new Killie boss Steve Clarke at West Brom, and said: ‘He’ll have them organised and fired up, which means we’ll need to be able to match them.’