St Mirren 0 - 0 Rangers: Familiarity breeds contempt

Published on Saturday 6 February 2010 20:12

THEY must love each other, St Mirren and Rangers. They better had because they seem to be locked in an unending clinch.

• Rangers' Kevin Thomson and St Mirren's Michael Higdon battle for the ball.

Their inability to separate themselves in a humdrum Scottish Cup clash means a replay will be required to settle their fifth-round Active Nations tie.

And, with them being Co-operative Insurance Cup finalists, having played the other week in the league and scheduled to do so again in three weeks, they will grapple five times in the space of less than eight weeks. By then they will hate the sight of each other, surely. Or, on this evidence, punters will hate the sight of them sharing a pitch, at least.

At St Mirren Park yesterday, home fans didn't exactly rush to the dry run of the League Cup final. The football served up was in keeping with the sub-5,000 attendance, although that may be a tad harsh on Saints. Twice within seconds of the hour mark, Madjid Bougherra made goal-line clearances from Michael Higdon, and St Mirren made enough of the running for Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist to admit he was relieved his team were still in the competition – despite it adding another game to a treble-pursuing schedule that revolves around SPL success. "Given the choice, I'd take that any day," McCoist said.

He made a ledger of positives and negatives, with the return of Kris Boyd and Kenny Miller after injury in the former bracket. Both men have put themselves in line for facing Motherwell at Fir Park on Wednesday after replacing Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith for the final 28 minutes of the match.

Boyd was playing his first game since a double hernia operation a month ago and reappeared on the very day Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish said he will come back in for the striker in the summer, when he is out of contract.

Miller, meanwhile, was fit again after overcoming his latest hamstring problem. McCoist admitted the partnership that proved be to prolific in December "didn't create an awful lot more than the boys they replaced."

St Mirren assistant Andy Millen was oddly more ambivalent about adding another game to his club's playing schedule. "The replay will take care of itself, but the league is the most important for us," said Millen, who declared a draw a "fair result".

"The manager felt obliged to field the same team that won the semi, but we only have 15 senior professionals, so you won't see that every week.

"Not that I'm trying to take anything away from what the players have done. They deserve credit for reaching the club's first final in 23 years and staying in the league for the past four years."

At times, it felt as if this tie was going to run for four years. In the first half, Higdon attempted an overhead kick. It was incredibly successful. It went over his head, over the bar, over the heads of the Rangers fans packed in to the stand behind the goal and over the top of the stand itself. It was one "highlight" of a half so forgettable as to mock the very idea of any "high" being reached.

Grim determination has been important for both teams, and partly accounts for the fact they will meet in the first domestic final of the season in March. This, of course, was bigger news for the Paisley club. And perhaps why there was more gusto in their early efforts yesterday. "We gave ourselves a chance at least after losing early goals in a Scottish Cup semi-final last year (that ended 2-0], at Ibrox this season (to lose 2-0] and then out there the other week (in a 2-0 home defeat]," Millen said. The same fate never looked like befalling them yesterday.

Indeed, save for a couple of times when Rangers spread the play, and had a Steven Davis header pushed away by Paul Gallagher, the Ibrox team were forced to defer to the home side. Saints had the best of possession and territory. Granted, at times it was marginal, both teams appearing content to let the minutes drift past in mundane fashion.

Initially, it probably helped St Mirren that they fielded an unchanged side from the semi-final win over Hearts on Tuesday. Rangers' cause wasn't aided by omissions in their line-up. Bougherra, on his return from Africa Cup of Nations duty – the 2008 tournament, someone uncharitably quipped – partnered Danny Wilson in the place of the suspended David Weir. But their problems were further upfield, principally in that injuries to Nacho Novo and John Fleck left them with no options but to go again with Lafferty and Naismith. Still, they succeeded in extending their domestic unbeaten record to 15 games and it left Bougherra reflecting on the fact that Rangers' season had continued to crank up since he left for the Africa Cup of Nations in December. "When I was in Angola I followed the team and when I saw we were in the final, ten points in front and still in the cup it was a big motivation for me," he said. "We have everything in our hands."