Attendance 49,702
Suddenly the prophets of doom who have encircled Ibrox
after the Falkirk debacle may have to rethink their
calls for the axe to fall on the Rangers'
Manager for on the evidence of today's
ninety minutes - if this display can be maintained
then the season may not be such a catastrophic one
after all.
Paul Le Guen made two changes from Falkirk with Steven
Smith and Libor Sionko replacing Sasa Papac and the
injured Kris Boyd.
Rangers were on the attack from the opening minutes
and had the ball in the net in fourteen minutes when
Dado Prso netted from a Barry Ferguson cross only for
the goal to be chalked off for offside.
The opener was merely delayed sixty seconds however,
Prso converting a Nacho Novo flick through the
legs of Hibs' goalkeeper Zbigniew Malkowski.
In the aftermatch of the goal Ivan Sproule had
aggressively pushed Ferguson , not once but
twice. Incredibly Referee Iain Brines saw fit to
yellow card both players, although quite what the
Ibrox Captain had done to deserve a booking mystified
almost the entire 49,702 crowd. It would not be the
only decision that the official got wrong during the
course of the game.
Sproule attempted to make a positive impact on
proceedings with an eighteen-yard shot following a
Steven Fletcher free-kick that Allan McGregor was
equal too in twenty minutes.
Eleven minutes later it was 2-0 when Prso, released
down the right, saw his cross elude the inrushing Novo
only for Charlie Adam to seize on the loose ball to
centre for Libor Sionko to net.
Rangers were now tearing the opposition apart, and
immediately after that second goal Prso was denied
when his turn and shot from a Ferguson pass was held
by Malkowski.
The Light Blues would not be denied however ,
Ferguson making it 3-0 in 35 minutes with a header
from an Adam cross.
Two minutes later Steven Whittaker committed a bad
foul on Steven Smith, which Iain Brines deemed worthy
of only a lecture , yet when the Hibernian
full-back scythed down Prso in 41 minutes no action
was taken other than the award of a free-kick.
The Easter Road men attempted to salvage a crumb of
comfort from what had been a devastating first-half
for them , Chris Killen shooting wide from
Sproule's cutback in 43 minutes.
Hibs' Manager John Collins, realising that
drastic surgery was required, made two changes at the
interval with Michael Stewart and Abdessalam
Benjelloun replacing Killen and Guillaume Beuzelin.
Rangers continued to force the pace however ,
Adam's wide-angled twenty-yard free-kick being
fisted over by Malkowski in 53 minutes.
Hibs were reduced to ten men in 65 minutes when
Sproule inevitably received his second yellow and
subsequent red card for a show of dissent when
disputing the award of a throw-in to the home side on
the halfway line.
Sixty seconds later Prso was through on goal only to
see his drive blocked by Malkowski.
Filip Sebo replaced Prso in 75 minutes, the Croatian
departing to a standing ovation, and within two
minutes his replacement was through on a Ferguson pass
only to shoot straight at Malkowski.
Sebo again should have scored in 81 minutes from a
Smith cross, only to be denied by Malkowski again.
Iain Brines' nightmare was summed up four
minutes later when substitute Thomas Buffel was yellow
carded for diving when he had clearly had the legs
whipped from under him.
The victory belonged to Rangers however, marking the
first defeat suffered by Hibernian under John
Collins' managership , and afterwards a
contented Le Guen summarised:
βIt was a great result and one of our best
displays. The first-half was brilliant. The pressure
was on today. We should have scored more. It's
all a question of confidence. We have been
inconsistent, and that's hard to explain.β
To no-one's surprise, the Scottish Cup draw
produced an away game for Rangers for the tenth time
in eleven ties , at Dunfermline Athletic on 6/7
January 2007.
RANGERS McGregor; Hutton, Hemdani, Svensson, Smith;
Sionko (Rae 78), Ferguson, Clement, Adam; Prso (Sebo
75), Novo (Buffel 83)
UNUSED SUBS Klos, Papac, Rodriguez, Stanger
HIBERNIAN Malkowski; Whittaker, Jones, Martis, Murphy;
Sproule, Beuzelin (Benjelloun 45), Scott Brown
(Zemmama 73), Thomson, Fletcher; Killen (Stewart 45)
UNUSED SUBS McNeil, Hogg, Shiels, Glass
REFEREE Iain Brines