IT would be crazy to write off the Ian Cathro experiment at Hearts on the strength of the success or failure of his opening match in charge.
If things worked this way Henrik Larsson might have been dismissed as a dud and sent back to Sweden after his Easter Road debut. But the army of cynics which has arisen after the 30-year-old's appointment left Ibrox on Saturday armed with additional ammunition.
The furore over the fast tracking of the former Dundee United youth coach - and the aspersions cast about his chances of success in the post by the likes of Kris Boyd, Jamie Fullarton and Stephen Craigan - all plays into a familiar fault line in Scottish football.
Read more: Joe Garner: I couldn't care less what critics say as long as Rangers keep winning
While some in the game wonder who this cocky young upstart thinks he is, others feel that such a reaction only proves how much the game in this country is held back by conservative thinking from the coaching establishment.
There is no crime in offering an opinion, though, and just perhaps there were a few knowing glances and a few told-you-so's as Cathro's critics noted this result coming through. If this wasn't exactly back to the drawing board, it was certainly time to fine tune a few things on the laptop.
The 30-year-old swore blind that this straightforward 2-0 defeat at Ibrox in his first senior match in charge was just "another day at the office". There was "no drama" here, "no disaster", but he still felt moved to stride across the Ibrox playing surface to reassure the Hearts fans that his team will be better than that in the future.
While there are no guarantees, it is unfair to expect anyone to imprint his own ideas on a team after just a few days in charge. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Tynecastle side's personnel and tactics were well nigh identical to those employed by Robbie Neilson in the 2-0 victory for his side at Tynecastle.
Read more: Joe Garner: I couldn't care less what critics say as long as Rangers keep winning
How successful Cathro becomes will become clear over the next weeks, months and years, and experiences like this will only help him get to know his players, and himself. But football has a habit of wrecking the reputations of big name coaches and managers, even young innovative ones like him.
Mark Warburton could tell him something about that. Feted as a tactical genius and regarded as flavour of the month as Rangers lorded it over the rest of the Championship last season, the Englishman has been questioned like never before after a difficult adjustment phase to life in the top flight.
A similar process is also under way in the Barclays Premier League, where some of the most storied managers ever to have walked the earth like Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have found that their big reputations count for little when a couple of poor results come along.
As much as the Warburton project was creaking following the 2-0 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle, there are signs that Rangers, and their manager, are coming out the other end of the ordeal. Back-to-back home wins against Aberdeen and Hearts have dispelled the notion that the Ibrox side are a soft touch and seen them open a four-point gap on second place. With Celtic imperious domestically, Rangers will have to settle for best of the rest this season and should they overcome draw specialists Hamilton Accies on Friday night, it would be the first time this season the club have racked up three successive wins.
While Cathro was correct to point out that this match turned somewhat on a couple of incidents - even if he declined to make much political capital out of a late flag which cost Don Cowie the game's opening goal, nor the free-kick for a Callum Paterson foul on Jason Holt which led to the first goal of the match - Hearts were well beaten in the end.
With Kenny Miller lobbing wide of the target early on and substitute Martyn Waghorn spurning a couple of late chances, Rangers could quite easily have scored five or six goals. The two they did get came from a Rob Kiernan header from a James Tavernier free-kick, before the outstanding Barrie McKay, refreshed after a pell out of the team, converted after a long Wallace throw was misjudged by Feycal Rherras.
Read more: Joe Garner: I couldn't care less what critics say as long as Rangers keep winning
While Warburton has been castigated for being tactically inflexible, in fact the Englishman proved on Saturday that he is prepared to tinker with certain aspects of his team shape. While McKay produced the kind of individual performance which must have had any watching scouts purring, having him hugging the touchline on the big pitch gave Rangers in general more room to play.
Danny Wilson, benefiting from the suspension of Clint Hill in central defence, showed his range of long passing to create mismatches out wide, while the graft of Joe Garner up front and James Tavernier in midfield saw them hold their own in the physical battle. As much as he downplayed all the fuss surrounding his appointment as 'noise', Cathro could already do with a victory next week against Partick Thistle or he may find his critics were just getting started.
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