KENNY BLACK, the Rangers assistant manager, believes a positive start from his side against Hibernian tomorrow evening will help overcome any mental and physical weariness in the aftermath of Sunday's match with Queen of the South.
Rangers will host Alan Stubbs' side at Ibrox just days after booking their place in the Premiership play-off semi-finals against the Doonhamers, a 1-1 draw at home enough to earn them a 3-2 aggregate win as they took another step towards a Premiership return. After facing Hibernian for the sixth time tomorrow, Stuart McCall's side will then make the trip to Easter Road on Saturday aiming to set up a final meeting with Motherwell.
While Rangers have had to see off Queens to reach this stage, Hibs have spent time in Spain to prepare for what they hope will be four matches as they bid to reclaim their place in the top flight at the first attempt. The effect the contrasting schedules will have on the match has been debated for some time but McCall's right hand man isn't worried about the impact it will have on the Ibrox squad.
"We knew what the rules were and finishing second does give you the advantage in regards to game time," Black said. "They have had four or five days in Spain I believe and maybe guys who have been carrying knocks towards the end of a long season have had a chance to recuperate. But our lads are really focused on getting through.
"I don't think there are any major problems from [Sunday's] game so hopefully we have got a clean bill of health to take us into the game on Wednesday. Once the whistle starts the game, we will look to try and start in a positive manner. You quickly forget about the game we had on Sunday but we certainly want to have the same result and to proceed."
Rangers required a 60th minute equaliser from Lee Wallace to finally edge past Queens on Sunday after Derek Lyle brought James Fowler's side level in the tie in the first half. In a frantic finale, the hosts managed to hold on and see out the game and Black is eager to keep up the momentum this evening.
"It was a bit nervy but we are hoping to get off to a good start on Wednesday night," he told RangersTV. "That doesn't mean necessarily that we need to win the game but we certainly want to stay in the tie. We have already gone to Easter Road and won, and Hibs lost the play-off final last year at home to Hamilton. There is a great deal of football still to be played but it would be nice to get off to a winning start on Wednesday obviously."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article