MARK WARBURTON is confident Rangers will bounce back from their first defeat of the campaign after crashing out of the League Cup last night.

The Light Blues went down 3-1 at Ibrox as they were denied a twelfth successive victory on Warburton’s watch.

A trip to Cappielow is next up for the Gers as they look to maintain their advantage at the top of the Championship standings.

And Warburton insists his side are still on the right track despite seeing them come up short in their first match against Premiership opposition this term.

He said: “We got beat 3-1. But in the second half we scored a goal and hit the bar. If we scored a second goal it’s a different game.

“But the random nature was that they had a great strike for their second goal. We didn’t get out to the ball but it was still a great strike.

“But I don’t think the gap [between the Championship and Premiership] is as wide, as I said earlier. We’ll learn from it.

“It’s about how we respond and we had a 10 minute discussion in the dressing room about that.

"They came together as a group of players on June 27, which is less than three months ago. They have gelled in a short period of time, all credit to them, but we’ll get better.

“It will be a normal scenario for us to face men behind the ball and have to deal with a counter or set-piece. So we have to show more guile or cleverness, more quality in that key area.”

On a night where Rangers had to be at their best to book a fourth round berth, Warburton’s side were uncharacteristically below par as they slumped to defeat.

James Tavernier gave Ibrox hope they could rescue the tie on the hour mark but first half goals from Murray Davidson and Simon Lappin and a Michael O’Halloran strike clinched a deserved win for the Saints.

Warburton said: “Their plan was to sit in and counter and we had to be better in the first half. We gave a goal away straight after half-time, which you can’t do, but our reaction was good afterwards.

“All credit to St Johnstone but we have to learn from that first half. I thought we were good in the second half and kept going until the final whistle with the right attitude.

“We had to show more quality in the final third as well at times. But we can’t give away goals of that nature.

“We knew what we wanted to do to stop the counter and we didn’t do it. One ball and bit of pace beats us for the third goal and that can’t happen.

“The players know that. They are an honest group and we’ll work on it.”