RANGERS have thirteen championship games to negotiate before they can celebrate their return to the big time but first there is an opportunity to evaluate how far they still have to travel. They have a weekend away from league business to take on Rob Kiernan's former team Kilmarnock in the William Hill Scottish Cup and the big defender isn't the only one who can't wait to see how they measure up.
While Mark Warburton's side suffered a chastening 3-1 reverse against a Michael O'Halloran-inspired St Johnstone on their only previous exposure to Premiership opposition this season, there has been an increasing assuredness about the Ibrox side in recent weeks and Kiernan insists that they won't alter their mindset against a Kilmarnock team who enter the match in a fair amount of disarray. Former Rangers stalwart Lee McCulloch is serving as caretaker manager following the resignation of Gary Locke but Kiernan is more inclined to focus on his own team's performance.
"It will be a chance for us to measure our progress," said Warburton. "We’ll go into that game with confidence.
"We’ll obviously respect Kilmarnock because they’re playing in a league above us. They are going to be a harder test than usual. But we’ll take the same mental attitude into it, play our stuff and hopefully get a result."
Kiernan and his fellow defenders may have been left exposed that night against St Johnstone, but consecutive clean sheets against play-off contenders Morton, Falkirk and Raith Rovers has been a show of strength and the former Wigan man feels confidence is high as the championship finishing line comes into view.
"Confidence is definitely rising," said Kiernan. "We’ve got 13 games left now and we know what our objective is. To get there, we need to win football matches. It doesn’t matter if it’s pretty or not, we just have to win. We can see the finishing line in sight, of course we can.
"That’s our main objective this season, to get promoted, and we can see the end of the season coming," he added. "There are just a few months left in which to keep our concentration, focus on the games – and get there in the end.
"I think this team has shown its strengths. Ideally we would like to score a lot of goals – that is our objective. But sometimes it’s not pretty, you just have to dig out result. That’s what we’ve been doing lately. It’s great to keep a clean sheet again, although that’s not just down to the back four. We work on it from one to 11. But if we can build a platform at the back, the boys up top can go and score goals."
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