Walter Smith firmly focused on final push

Published on Saturday 14 May 2011 16:15

THE focus is the 90 minutes, not the rewards or the emotions. Forget the extra cash that goes to the championship-winning team and the fact they go into the European equation at the third qualifying stage of the Champions League while the runners-up have to make do with the Europa Cup; forget the bragging rights and forget the fact that this will be manager Walter Smith's last game as Rangers manager.

When Smith sends his team out at Rugby Park this afternoon he wants them to push all those matters from their mind and play the game in isolation. All that matters is three points. After a long, hard season, if they can do that everything else takes care of itself.

"It is very difficult to split anything you do: if you can achieve winning a league championship that, to me, is the full test of the team and management because it is over the full season and you have got a lot of problems you have to overcome," sayd Smith. "We have had one or two extra ones to overcome in the last few years, but that's where the players I have got come to the fore. I think they have been fantastic in their approach to the game and everything that's happened to them. It's not easy when the manager has got to tell every one of them that they are up for sale and that's been the case for the last two and a half years.

"They have seen top scorers leave, good players leave, their contracts maybe haven't been renewed at a time when maybe they think they should. Some players' contracts have been allowed to run out and they have still had to play for the team and they have all done so with a terrific level of commitment. I am biased towards this group of players but they deserve every success they get, the ones they have had in the past and hopefully they can achieve again on Sunday."

While the new owner Craig Whyte would prefer to receive the estimated 2.89 million from the SPL as champions rather than the 2.55m doled out to the runners-up, the players have already stated that their primary motivation for winning the title is their gaffer. In the stands and on the pitch, the emotion of the occasion will rarely be far from the surface for some. Smith insists he won't be one of them.

"I am certainly ready for the exit on Sunday," said the man who has bolstered his first trophy-laden stint at the club with a further seven trophies and a UEFA Cup final appearance since returning in 2007. And that's before this afternoon's SPL denoument. "It's dead easy for me (to keep focused on the match]. I got a nice accolade (his reception by fans at Ibrox] on Tuesday, it's not something I am entirely comfortable with but I got it so Sunday is the turn of the team and they deserve all the plaudits as much as anything."

Rangers go into today's match with a one-point advantage. Win and the title is their's. But it is a scenario many of them, including their manager, struggled to envisage at times during the long campaign.

"There are stages of the season that you look at and have got to make a judgment and with having the Champions League, League Cup and league games I knew we were going to need a bit of luck to get through them all without injury etc," says Smith. "We actually handled that first part of season. We had one or two poor performances and results, but we handled it OK. I felt if we were in touching distance in January we would have a wee chance. We were in touching distance but then we lost Kenny Miller and it was a scenario where you were looking at the downside of things more than the upside but we have managed to cling on. We had an opportunity against Dundee United to go into the lead for the first time for a long time and we let that one slip and it wasn't until Celtic lost at Inverness we got back in front again. I said then we would need to win the three games left to win the league and that is still the case."

Whether buoyed by the Inverness result or simply rejuvenated by a couple of free midweeks or the return to fitness of key players such as Nikica Jelavic, or galvanised by the fact that their destiny is in their own hands and the season's end is in sight, Rangers have been playing some of their best football of the season in recent weeks. Smith says that freshness has surfaced at just the right time But he knows it matters little if they let their focus wander this afternoon.

"People talk about Celtic's performance at Inverness and say they bottled it. I don't think that's the case. Rangers and Celtic operate in a pressured environment in every game they play and it's the fact they don't play well and Neil (Lennon] himself said they didn't play well at Inverness, so when your team doesn't play well, that's what happens to you.It has happened to us this season on more than a few occasions.

"But we have experienced going to Easter Road last year, Tannadice the year before, to win a championship and I would hope that experience can help us but it is still just a matter of making sure we go and play at the level we have been playing at and we will have to play well to win the game because Kilmarnock have been a decent team this season."

Asked for his favourite memory of his years in charge at Rangers, Smith said it was being appointed manager the first time around. Not all the trophies or even the nine-in-a-row achievement. Coming back to reprise that role in 2007 he knew things at the club had changed but he still believed in himself."I didn't think coming back would preclude me from being successful but like everything else when you make your decision you can only hope you do have a level of success."

Those hopes came true and the players and the fans would love him to leave on a high this time. He just wants them to focus on the 90 minutes.