ONLY the passage of time will show how highly James Tavernier and his Rangers team mates come to be regarded by supporters of the Ibrox club.
Winning the Championship and securing promotion to the top flight – an accomplishment which now looks increasingly likely, if not quite a certainty, after their weekend victory over Falkirk – will definitely ingratiate them to their fans.
The last few years have been hard for those who follow the Glasgow institution. The calibre of player has not been great. The quality of play has very often left much to be desired. The draws and defeats they have suffered were once unthinkable.
So, the members of the side which ends that difficult spell in the lower leagues and clinches a place alongside the likes of Aberdeen, Celtic and Dundee United will not be quickly forgotten.
But will the likes of Tavernier, Martyn Waghorn and Danny Wilson be as revered as their celebrated predecessors in years to come? Will their names be uttered in the same breath as Derek Johnstone, Richard Gough and Davie Weir? It is hard to tell at this stage.
Yet, one Rangers legend is certainly already, after just nine league games, of the opinion that the feats of one of Mark Warburton’s charges could supersede his achievements in the months ahead.
John Greig, now a regular visitor to Ibrox on match days once again, believes Tavernier, the right back whose sublime free-kick on Saturday took his tally for this term to nine, can better his best-ever haul for a campaign.
Greig netted 13 from left back in the 1967/68 season – but the man who has been ingeniously dubbed “The Blue Cafu” by the Rangers supporters is well on course to better that.
“I have a little bit of banter with John Greig,” said the Englishman. “He says he scored 13 goals once so I’m kind of after that record and beating him, because we have good banter together.”
Tavernier and his fellow full-back Lee Wallace are now in the top three scorers at Ibrox. Only Waghorn, who has 14 to his name in all competitions, has netted more since the new season got underway.
Wallace, the Rangers captain, sewed up a 3-1 triumph, his side’s ninth successive win in nine games in the second tier, over Falkirk on Saturday with a powerful effort in injury-time.
“It’s a bonus if I score a goal,” said Tavernier. “Obviously, I’m delighted when I do so, but it’s all about helping the team. Waldo is the same. But it’s great the two full-backs are contributing with goals."
Tavernier’s effort – which resulted from a controversial decision by referee John McKendrick that incensed Peter Houston and will land the Falkirk manager in trouble with the SFA – was one of the most important he has scored since moving to Scotland.
For Warburton’s side struggled at home for the second time in under a fortnight. Will Vaulks cancelled out the early opener from Dean Shiels in the first half and then Houston’s team competed well with their rivals thereafter.
“There was a lot of pressure taking the free-kick,” admitted Tavernier. “Before it, Andy (Halliday) said to me: ‘Just produce some magic’. I’m just happy that it went in and relieved some pressure on the team.
“Falkirk are probably the hardest working team we have played against and they had a great record coming into the match. They made it really hard for us. So we are just really happy that we got the win and made it maximum points with nine wins from nine.”
Keen to accentuate the positive, Tavernier stressed the result underlined that a side which has received plaudits for its attractive attacking football can also, when the occasion demands it, grind out a result.
“If you watched the Premier League in England last season and saw Chelsea, you would have seen that sometimes you have to win ugly and really dig deep to win games,” he said.
‘I’m just happy that we can find ways to win games. We don’t always have to play really good football to get there. Hopefully, that can help us through the season, because it won’t always be pretty. We are going to have to dig deep.”
Vaulks, whose first half volley was arguably the goal of the game, admitted the Falkirk players had felt just as aggrieved as their manager not to have drawn tat the end of the 90 minutes.
“Obviously it’s nice to score a goal like that, but we feel a bit robbed to be honest with you,” he said. “It’s hard to see how that was a foul for the second goal. We played well and battled hard at a tough place to visit. We should have got a point at least.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel