Queen of the South 1 Rangers 2: Vuckic inspires Gers in opening battle

One down, five to go. Winners here, Stuart McCall’s side can be confident of closing out this Premiership play-off quarter-final tie at Ibrox a week today.

And while Hibs, as well as the yet to be determined Premiership eleventh, will also have to be subsequently seen off over four games, the dream of a third successive promotion is very much alive.

Mind you if it is anything like this pulsating Palmerston encounter, they will need what is left of the summer to calm their nerves. For Queens, endless positivity and their boisterous home crowd helped make this a terrifically exciting contest to watch.

James Fowler’s team had already beaten Rangers twice at Palmerston this season, scoring five and keeping two clean sheets.

And while beaten here, they gave everything they had to complete the hat-trick.

With just seconds on the clock they forced Cammy Bell into action, the Rangers goalkeeper diving to his left to block Derek Lyle’s powerful header.

In the absence of injured skipper Lee McCulloch and out-of-favour Bilel Mohsni, the Light Blues teamed up Darren McGregor and Marius Zaliukas in the centre again.

A carelessly misplaced pass from the latter apart, the pairing had a solid look about it vindicating the arguments of those fans who felt they should have been used all along.

Certainly, while Mohsni scored at the ground in the Challenge Cup last season a game that amusingly saw him introduced over the tannoy as Billy Mohsni he looked anything but comfortable in his two league runouts in Dumfries this year.

The same too could be said of McCulloch in his past couple of Rangers appearances. He was booed by sections of all four Ibrox stands for his part in the 2-2 draw against Falkirk a couple of

weeks back.

Dropped to the substitutes bench for the match against Hearts at Tynecastle eight days ago, his late introduction to the action coincided with the champions’ dramatic late fightback to snatch a draw.

The visitors have been better to watch under Stuart McCall with Andy Murdoch and Haris Vuckic particularly good.

Vuckic, the Slovenian on loan from Newcastle, looked particularly in the mood.

His passes were crisp, there was a swagger to his stride and he showed clear intent when flashing a shot just wide on his first clear sighting of goal. And he was to play a key role in Rangers’ breakthrough.

It was his tenacity and persistence which drew a foul from Queens defender Andy Dowie, a former Rangers player, just a couple of yards outside his own penalty area.

The two men had become entangled and Dowie’s team-mates were furious because they felt their player was more sinned against, than sinner. That mattered little to Rangers.

As the howls of disapproval rang out from the stands, they eyed their options.

Vuckic himself shaped to shoot but, at the last moment, stepped over the ball, clearing the way for the on-rushing Steven Smith.

Smith holds a great reputation for his dead ball ability and here he showed why, curling a beauty of a shot high into the top corner of keeper Zander Clark’s near post.

From Rangers’ perspective, it could scarcely have been timed better if they had tried.

Queens had no opportunity to regroup before they had to trudge off to the dressing room for the interval.

Sensing their team had if not a foot, at least a toe, in the next round, the Light Blues fans turned up the volume on their team’s return.

There was soon more for them to get excited about too with Kenny Miller going close to making it two when he darted back inside from the left flank and flashed a near post shot.

This time, Clark was able to deal with the threat though he soon had reason to count his blessings when Nicky Law steered a close range header just too high.

The missed opportunities were to comeback to bite them with Queens seizing on a mix up at the back to equalise.

Ian McShane swung in a corner, Lyle peeled off towards the back post where, with the Light Blues defenders getting in each others way, he found himself unmarked.

Scarcely able to believe his luck, he buried his header in the back of the net.

And, just like that, it all changed.

Now it was Queens who had their tails up and were pushing for a winner with Bell doing well to palm a Kevin Holt curler behind.

It was to be short-lived, however, with Rangers retaliating with a fine second.

Vuckic put Ricky Foster clear through on the byline.

The full back picked out Dean Shiels in the box with his cross and the forward scored with a perfectly placed header.