I WAS astounded by the reaction to Rangers 1-1 draw with Albion Rovers in their Scottish Cup quarter-final last Sunday.

Yes, it was a bad day at the office, but the bottom line is Rangers are still in the William Hill Scottish Cup and remain favourites to make the semi-finals.

Now, had they lost to Rovers then that would have been a shock that was right up there with the defeat by Berwick back in the Sixties, but the bottom line is they did not.

If you look at the tie itself then the first thing to say is that Rovers are a team who have already knocked out the side sitting third in the SPFL Premiership, in Motherwell, who were in the Champions League qualifiers not a while back.

They may be a team of joiners and plumbers but they are fit, very well-organised and they know what is needed to pull off a cup shock.

Rovers also proved very adept at parking the bus in front of their penalty box and they defended like their lives depended on it after they had taken the lead.

When you get a side who do that, and you are already trailing by a goal, and the crowd are on your back, it is far from easy to turn it around.

Yet although Rangers' performance was not good enough, they found a way to stay alive in the Scottish Cup. They also still had 30 shots at goal and five or six stick-on opportunities to score.

So for me that was where the big fault lay, in that they did not take these chances. But buoyed by clinching the League One title I expect them to make no mistake at the second time of asking.

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