Van sees a test match

GIOVANNI van Bronckhorst admitted his 10-man Rangers side survived a big test of their title credentials in their 3-1 win at Motherwell.

Rangers narrowed the gap on Celtic to three points at the top of the Scottish Premiership ahead of the leaders’ trip to Ross County today.

But they did it the hard way following Leon Balogun’s red card after only 28 minutes for a lunge on Dean Cornelius.

Ross Tierney’s equaliser cancelled out an own goal opener from Liam Kelly – although Scott Wright was claiming it. But there was no denying Wright moments after the break before a James Tavernier penalty clinched the win.

Gers boss Van Bronckhorst (above) said: “We started off really well and we were in control.

“With the red card, we had to switch to a different way of playing. It worked out well. You need to make sure you still create the chances and the players did what we wanted really well.”

On Balogun’s dismissal, the Dutchman said: “The margins are really close and we need to accept the red we had.

“It was the decision of the referee, I concentrated more on how we had to play.”