ALLY McCoist last night turned up the heat on SPFL Championship rivals Hearts and backed his squad to cope with a potential fixture pile-up caused by the postponement of matches scheduled for international weeks, writes Stewart Fisher.

While the Tynecastle side appear to have prioritised league football above all else - manager Robbie Neilson fielded a second-string side as they crashed out of the Petrofac Cup to Livingston early in the season - McCoist feels that approach is not an option for Rangers.

He leads his team into the quarter-finals of the Petrofac Cup on Tuesday against East Fife - Alloa wait in the semi-final, and potentially Livingston in the final - already nine league points behind Hearts, who have played a game more. Assuming it all goes to plan, this is a tournament which Rangers will no longer be eligible to participate in next season.

"I'm guessing we might have got a different reaction had we fielded a team in the Petrofac Cup like the team Hearts played," McCoist said. "But that's Hearts' prerogative. They're entitled to do what they see fit. I don't care what anyone says, we're very much in a no-win situation because if we don't treat the competition with respect we get dog's abuse.

"We've always attempted to treat every competition we've been in with respect. So we want to win it and will field an extremely strong side that will hopefully win the tie. There's every possibility the semi might be on a Saturday, which would again knock back a league game."

After two years lording it over their lower- division rivals, there is a novelty factor in Rangers players playing catch-up with anybody. But, likewise, the scenario presents a challenge for the impressive young players being developed at Hearts. "I would never claim to be clever enough to get involved in mind games," McCoist said. "But it's all new for everybody. With the greatest of respect to the Hearts boys, I don't recall many of them winning anything. Most of our boys have won championships over the past couple of years.

"A couple of them have won Scottish Cups. But there's not a lot of players from either side who have been involved in a league campaign that looks like it's going to go all the way. It will be interesting to see how people react in different situations."

Last Saturday's meeting with Cowdenbeath was postponed despite only Bilel Mohsni and Marius Zaliukas being away with Tunisia and Lithuania respectively, while Dean Shiels was on Northern Ireland's stand-by list, but McCoist feels the club have set a precedent which they must maintain.

"We've taken a stance to do it and we need to continue doing it," he said. "Also, if we'd played the game and lost, you could count on one hand the supporters who'd say, 'It's all right, we had three players away on international duty'. We could have a crazy winter with a fixtures backlog, but it's a decision we've made."

Rangers, of course, reached the final of this competition last year, then under the sponsorship of Ramsdens, before their hopes of a gala day out crashed to earth in such wounding fashion to Raith Rovers at Easter Road.

The memory of that black day is a powerful source of motivation for players such as Richard Foster. "It wasn't a good day for us," he said. "We didn't play well and they scored with their only shot on target with a couple of minutes to go, which wasn't nice to take. The fans weren't happy but we weren't happy in the dressing room either. It just spurs you on."