Rangers hit five on crazy night in Dundee - delays, pyro, more delays and Sam Lammers redemption

New Rangers manager Philippe Clement won’t forget his first domestic away game in a hurry – nor his maiden visit to Dens Park.

Rangers' Ryan Jack and Dundee's Owen Beck in action as flares fill the stand behind them. (Photo by Ross Parker / SNS Group)

It might be known as the Scot Foam Stadium now but it’s still Dens as far as most people are concerned and the old stadium has never seen anything like this in its 120 plus years.

The main stand with its wooden details and which dates to 1921 was a particular source of concern as smoke from numerous flares held aloft in the away end billowed towards the pitch two minutes into a game that was already severely delayed. Fire alarms were triggered and referee Kevin Clancy took the players off the pitch on police advice.

They had only been playing two minutes. It was 8.33pm. The game had been scheduled to kick-off at 7.45pm. A traffic accident on the Tay Bridge in an area already affected by roadworks had led to gridlock in Dundee. And this was on top of a weather bomb that had led to a yellow warning. The drainage issues at Dens Park meant this fixture had seemed particularly vulnerable to postponement.

Rangers' Sam Lammers celebrates after scoring to make it 3-0. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

But somehow it finished - at 10.41pm. And Rangers will be glad it did after they posted a resounding five-goal victory, including strikes from Ryan Jack, Danilo and Sam Lammers, who found the antidote to his recent troubles with an unstoppable shot that crashed spectacularly into the net off the bar under the noses of the away fans.

Fellow struggler Cyriel Dessers also got in on the act after coming on as substitute when rounding off a sweeping move with five minutes left. Yes, this really was a night to remember, for Rangers fans at least.

No one will convince Dundee supporters that Dessers' goal should not have stood after Clancy impeded Luke McCowan at the other end before the visitors broke away. Not that it mattered.

Despite staying the night before the game in St Andrews, just 15 miles away, the Rangers team bus only drew up outside Dens Park at 7.25pm. The team sheets had already been submitted but there was only one team inside the stadium until this point, just 20 minutes before the scheduled start. Having already been delayed until 8.05pm, the game was put back to 8.30pm, with the only major aggravation being felt by those on newspaper sports desks. Or so one might have thought.

Play had barely begun – with a fired-up Danilo chasing down Dundee defender Ricki Lamie straight from kick-off – when it was suspended again. Rangers fans has brought flares with them and they were damn well going to use them. Smoke engulfed in the away end and drifted towards the pitch almost concealing away goalkeeper Jack Butland. It was the sort of things one is more used to seeing in places like Athens or Istanbul, not Dundee.

A message was delivered to Clancy to stop the game. Eventually, after another five or so minutes where the players were having to go through their own keeping-warm routines, the teams were waved off the field by the referee, who had been in discussion with police and Dundee club officials near the home dugout.

They spent another 15 minutes or so inside before returning to the pitch in a latest bid to ensure the match could not just start but also finish on an evening that was beginning to resemble the recent Scotland v Georgia Euro 2024 qualifier, which many had felt had been a once-in-a-lifetime event. Yet here we were again as fans frantically consulted train timetables to discern whether they could get home or not. As for sports writers, had we stayed any longer we’d have been reporting on Dundee United’s game v Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Saturday.

The disruption at Hampden in June had been an act of God. Here it was a rather different story with the second delay at least being solely down to deliberate behaviour and a failure of the authorities to get to grips with the pyro issue.

The half-time whistle sounded when the game should have been approaching its conclusion. And having waited so long for Rangers to arrive, Dundee could just not get started. They seemed distracted – ‘keeper Trevor Carson in particular – and out of sorts. They were certainly untypical of their recent selves. The hosts came into this match on the back of a run of three consecutive clean sheets and yet they looked exposed here, with manager Tony Docherty opting for a back four – all of them centre-halves. A back five had appeared to work well against Livingston on their previous outing but Docherty is nothing if not open to tinkering with his line-up and formation.

Dundee didn’t give themselves a chance. They had started badly when the game had to be swiftly halted and they started badly again when it resumed. Carson fumbled Danilo’s shot and Jack tapped in. Just five minutes had been played although nearly half an hour had passed.

Rangers should already have been ahead. Abdallah Sima slid a shot wide from a Ridvan Yilmaz cross and he will know he should have scored.

Rangers might have extended their lead after ten minutes but Lammers, who appears perpetually in search of redemption when playing in a Rangers shirt, could only find the side-netting. Someone who did find some redemption, on more than one occasion, was Carson.

He executed an incredible double save to deny Danilo just after the half hour mark and earned a free-kick following the Rangers striker’s challenge after the second of these stops.

While the margin of lead was narrow at half-time, and Docherty made a double change by sending Cammy Kerr and striker Zak Rudden on, the game seemed already done and dusted when Danilo swept home after Sima’s cute through ball seven minutes into the second half.

Lammers earned that redemption with a stunning strike to make it three and was cheered off when replaced by Kieran Dowell with five minutes left. Rangers had made it four by then – Dessers doing what a Rangers No 9 is supposed to do.

And salt was rubbed into Dundee’s wounds in time added on when Rangers were given a penalty following a VAR check after substitute Lyall Cameron’s foul on James Tavernier. The captain stepped up and hit the ball firmly past Carson to cap an eventful night that we are bound to be hearing more about in the coming days.