STUART McCALL today admitted Rangers are currently "out" of the Premiership play-off final and only the maximum effort at Fir Park on Sunday will save the club for the greatest nightmare.

Both he and Motherwell manager Ian Baraclough went out their way to remind everyone that there is a second-leg still to go and even at 3-1 the Ibrox side remain alive in this tie.

But McCall conceded that his team were second best on the night and have a mountain to climb in what will be the final 90 minutes of their season on Sunday, which is going to determine whether Rangers remain out of the top tier of Scottish football for a fourth season.

McCall said: "Motherwell are now big favourites. We will have to look at the Hibs-Hamilton scenario of last season when they went into the last game and Hibs had a two-goal lead.

"What we have to do on Sunday is have a real go. We know we are out at this stage.

"If this was a cup final we would not have another chance, so at least we do have a second chance.

"We have to go now and throw everything we can at Motherwell. It will be interesting if we can get that first goal. Then we will need to go and get another.

"I am low, the players are low. I am really disappointed because that's the worst we have played since I came here."

A Darren McGregor own goal gave Motherwell the lead which was added to by Stephen McManus before half-time. Lionel Ainsworth made it 3-0 for the Steelmen a little over a minute after the break and the tie would surely have been settled had McGregor not scored in the right goal with eight minutes remaining.

Motherwell were by far the better side and would have put promotion beyond Rangers had they managed to show a bit more composure in front of goal in the second-half.

For Motherwell manager Baraclough, he did not attempt to hide the pride he felt with his team's performance.

True, he may have been masking the fact that his team should have scored more, but he was loath to offer any criticism after what McCall described as Motherwell's best performance of the season.

Baraclough said: "I thought to a man they were fantastic. We came with a game-plan, worked on shape and knew we could counter at pace, which we did really well. We could have scored a couple more with the right pass, but I couldn't fault them.

"We dealt with the crowd and the magnitude of the occasion. We were calm and put plenty of balls in the box. We also defended well.

"Is 3-1 enough? We will have to wait and see. We wanted to go back to Fir Park with some sort of result and to have a two-goal lead is great. But we have to now work harder than we did tonight because it isn't going to be easy.

"We need to make sure we get over the line. Nobody is kidding themselves. It is half-time - all the clichés. We knew we'd have chances and thankfully the boys took three of them.

"It didn't surprise me because we have good players. When we put it all together, they can go and produce performances like that."

One problem for Baraclough might be the fitness of Stevie Hammell who didn't last the 90 minutes and is a doubt for Sunday.