A group of men who were desperate to offer a performance which demonstrated that the ignominy of the immediate past was now behind them duly did so at Central Park yesterday, but they were not wearing Rangers shirts.

A week after they had claimed a deeply unwanted place in the record books with their 10 goal thrashing at the hands of the team that will win the Championship, Cowdenbeath regained much lost pride in battling bravely for a share of the points against the team that had been expected to.

With John Armstrong giving a captain's performance in dominating the aerial battles in his own area while showing fierce and selfless commitment on the rare occasions that a threat was mustered on the ground the rest followed his lead in earning what they took from this match.

Inevitably, however, the focus was on Rangers after the much more protracted unpleasantness they hope they have put behind them but there for all that there were mitigating circumstances this is not what the visiting support had been anticipating.

"That was awful," Nicky Law admitted afterwards.

"You couldn't play football out there today. It was impossible. The pitch is a swamp and with a gale force wind it was never going to be a good game.

"Obviously we had the advantage of it in the first half but we couldn't hit the target with the chances we had so it's very disappointing."

Gale force was something of an exaggeration, but caretaker boss Kenny McDowall made a similar defence of his players.

"They were horrendous conditions today," he said.

"The pitch was shocking and obviously the wind's difficult at the best of times but there are parts of that pitch where the ball doesn't even bounce. The guys gave a lot of effort. I'm not going to criticise them. They tried to win the game."

However having met with the new board but had, he said, no meaningful discussion about his own on-going role, he did acknowledge that much more is required in terms of contributing to what is expected to be a revival of the club's fortunes as they now prepare for a run of three matches on their home surface.

"We move on and we have to start winning games again," he said.

"It was great news for the club yesterday and hopefully the healing can start, but it's important we now do our bit on the pitch and continue to pick up points to keep ourselves in a play-off position. If that's the only option for us to get promotion then that's what we've got to do."On the face of it conditions were with Rangers in the opening period and with the breeze now at their backs literally as metaphorically they duly spent most of the opening period in opposition territory.

However for all that it ensured them that territorial advantage the wind also made it difficult to control, to the extent that on one occasion an attempt by Lee Robinson to launch an attack with a throw saw the ball skid beyond the opposite bye-line with only the faintest of touches by Kenny Miller on the way.

Consequently, while they had a fair number of attempts on goal, Robbie Thomson was hardly tested before their best attempt of the half when, in its final play, Law sent over a corner from the left which was met powerfully by Lee McCulloch, the ball beating the Cowdenbeath goal-keeper, but then striking the bar as squarely as it had met the Rangers captain's forehead.

Naturally, with the elements now in their favour, the home team had rather more of a second half which was much more evenly contested but again saw little asked of either goal-keeper.

No real sign, then, that the players have received an obvious and immediate boost in their bid to ensure that visits to grounds like Central Park will be consigned to the occasional luck of a cup draw.

Then again, with some who have watched them every week rating this as perhaps their worst performance of a chequered season those with the club's best interests at heart may feel that just as the vaunted new era dawns this was merely the last of the dark hours.

Cowdenbeath (3-5-1-1): R Thomson, K Adamson, T O'Brien, J Armstrong, N Wedderburn, L Milne, C Nish, S Higgins (K Oyenuga 81), J Herron, D Brett, D Brownlie

Rangers (4-3-3): L Robinson, L Wallace, L McCulloch, N Law, H Vuckic (S Smith 77), N Clark, K Boyd (J Daly 66), K Miller (D Shiels 66), K Hutton, D McGregor, M Zaliukas

Referee: S Finnie

Man of the match: Armstrong