THE SPFL have been castigated for almost every conceivable element of these Premiership play-offs.

The product of an uneasy, suspicion-fuelled merger between the SPL and SFL, not only are they generally recognised to be skewed heavily in favour of the threatened top-flight team, but this year there has been added confusion over the fixture dates until the 11th hour and more squabbling over the prize purse than between rival camps at a Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight.

One area where the league has definitely got it right, though, is in their insistence that such a serious business as promotion and relegation cannot be allowed to rest on the away-goals rule. That is why, a bit like Hibs at Hamilton 12 months ago, Rangers scored two of them at Palmerston on Saturday and still have much to do if they are to book their semi-final place. A half-time lead in a play-off match is often just a halfway house on the road to nowhere.

Negotiating the six matches the Ibrox club would require to take their place back in the top flight at the first time of asking is a test of your reserves all right. But as it turns out, for now Rangers' reserves are doing quite nicely thank you very much.

Wing-backs Stevie Smith and Richard Foster, both of whom have missed time due to injury and lack of form, have suddenly become mainstays, cramping up late on in games through their sheer exertions on the flanks. While the former, who has endured back problems, struck an unerring 25-yard free-kick to give his side the lead on his first appearance since early March, the latter still had the energy late on in only his second game back to hit the bye-line and produce his second assist in as many games. Then there is the man who got on the end of his cross, Dean Shiels, who is utterly transformed from the figure who was so far out of the first-team picture before the turn of the year that his father, Kenny, was cursing the fact his boy had ever signed for the club.

At the end of a season where the professionalism of this squad has been openly and repeatedly called into question, it says much for all three members of this little training-ground support group that they should have turned up ready to make such a contribution at the business end of things.

"There was a large group who weren't playing and for us it was just about working hard, so you were ready if you got called up," said Shiels. "There were guys like Stevie Smith and Richard Foster, guys who have had injuries and who haven't been selected. They both deserve a lot of credit because they haven't played any football. Stevie Smith is one of the best professionals I have seen, he has worked so hard, and when a chance has come he has taken it. That is the way I was looking at it as well. The boys who weren't playing, the training was always still high energy with high determination to get back in the team. That has only helped the group as a whole."

While these players are playing for themselves - not least those who are out of contract this summer - they are also playing for this manager. Some big clubs play the way they always play and let the opposition worry about them. Celtic, domestically at least under Ronny Deila, are one example, while teams like Barcelona rarely alter their formula. Jose Mourinho's principles, on the other hand, are a shifting sand of nullifying each opponent's strengths and the self-styled Special One for one would surely have no problems with McCall profiting by cannily employing conservative tactics in this part of the country still perceived as a Tory stronghold.

At a venue where he has lost the only one of his ten matches to date, he deployed the excellent, dogged Andy Murdoch to nullify the creativity of Danny Carmichael, told his three central defenders to cope with Queens' front two, and allowed the likes of Shiels, Haris Vuckic and Nicky Law to create menace of their own. It worked so well he might be tempted to do likewise at home on Sunday.

"We knew it was going to be tough, having come here previously this season and found it difficult." said Shiels. "But we came with a game plan this time and managed to play it out successfully."

Conventional wisdom suggests that Rangers, with 50,000 roaring them on, each paying £5 for the privilege, should see the tie out. But Queens are far from downhearted. "Everyone in the dressing room feels as if we should have at least a draw going into next week, if not the lead," said full-back Kevin Holt, who saw a right-foot effort clawed away by Cammy Bell shortly after Derek Lyle's disputed equaliser. "No-one in our dressing room is feeling like the tie is over. It's going to be great to play in front of a full house for us as well as them. We can go there, quieten the crowd and try to get them on their backs."