Jamie MacDonald, the Falkirk goalkeeper, insists that his side will take a lot of heart from their league defeat by Rangers earlier in the campaign and is confident a change in luck tonight can land them in the next round of the League Cup.

Falkirk enjoyed the upper hand against their Ibrox opponents for the vast majority of last month's meeting but still ended the match with a demoralising 2-0 defeat. However, MacDonald is convinced there was little wrong with his side's display in the league match and he is optimistic Peter Houston's side will benefit from a change in fortune this evening.

"I think we can take confidence from having played them already this season and from our performance in that game," said MacDonald, who joined from Hearts in the summer. "If we can play the same way then we are definitely capable of winning the game this time.

"We played great for 70 to 75 minutes and then lost a very unfortunate goal to a huge deflection and that has effectively won the game for them. After that the game opened up a bit because we had to try and get a goal back. But we can definitely take confidence from the way we played against them that night and take that into this game.

"Hopefully, this time, we can turn the chances into goals and play well for the full 90 minutes this time. We have actually played well for most of the games this season but we want to be winning games and hopefully our luck will turn.

"We've been very unlucky in quite a few of our games. We've played well and not won of a few occasions; our form is better than the results have shown. We've not played that badly, so hopefully we can keep our performance levels up high and this time that bit of luck changes."

MacDonald was a Tynecastle team-mate of Rangers quartet Lee Wallace, Ian Black, Marius Zaliukas and David Templeton and is not surprised that the latter has proven himself to be a key player for Rangers, with two goals in the last four games. "We'll need to keep him, and the others, quiet if we want to get the result we felt we deserved the last time," added the goalkeeper.