WE SHOWED BRAIN AND BRAWN, INSISTS A DELIGHTED ROBINSON

STEPHEN ROBINSON saluted the brawn and the ball-playing bravery of his St Mirren players as they came within minutes of pulling off an Old Firm double in Paisley.

Just as the Buddies found a way to inflict Celtic’s first Premiership defeat of the season in September, so they attacked the Ibrox side yesterday, with Jonah Ayunga firing the home team into the lead just after half-time.

Delighted with how Ayunga and Curtis Main carried a physical threat against a makeshift Rangers defence, Robinson also hailed his strikers’ quality in possession — and heaped praise on Mark O’Hara and Ethan Erhahon for dominating play in the middle of the park.

He said: ‘Belief is something we talk about but you have to show it on the pitch. They did that today. Even on the ball — that’s my big thing when you play the Old Firm. Can you keep the ball when you land on it? We did. The midfield were excellent. Ethan Erhahon. He should be playing for Rangers or Celtic. That boy is a player.

‘Mark has been terrific and that’s why I have made him captain. I thought he was the best player on the pitch today, man of the match.

‘Jonah came in and scored against Rangers and Celtic. He and Maino were a handful up front.

‘We felt that physically we could dominate them today. And we showed a great deal of quality, too.’

Although Robinson expressed no gripe with the VAR intervention that gave Rangers their late penalty, Ayunga was not pleased with the officiating by referee Kevin

Clancy and the VAR team.

He said: ‘We feel we could have had more if we’d just held on. It didn’t feel like 11 v 11 — after 60 minutes they were getting every decision, every 50-50.’