SATURDAY at a cold and uninspiring stadium with a weird name served as a reminder as to why Kenny Miller was handed a new contract.

The afternoon as a whole was also a statement put forward by Rangers that lessons have been learned and that they are prepared to do the dirty work in the less than glamorous surroundings to get back into the Premiership.

With all due respect to Dumbarton, who are a fine club and whose standing in Scottish football will always be a tall one simply because they once tried to sign Johan Cruyff, their ground is awful and it’s a good thing that they are trying to relocate.

An icy wind whips in off the Clyde, there is one stand and nothing else and the pitch is many things apart from being close to flat.

This is the sort of place where during their adventures in the lower leagues over these years, Rangers have dropped their standards and points, particularly last season.

The players haven’t been up for it, to coin a phrase, and the Dumbarton lads for example will also be psyched when the men from Ibrox come to town.

So there would have been more than one supporter who wondered whether the team had it in them to raise the performances levels once again so soon after their best performance of the last two seasons.

And they were well within their rights to be concerned.

But when a guy who has scored goals at Wembley, against Germany and Italy, winners in cup finals and Old Firm games, for both teams as well, can get himself up for such a match then automatic promotion is more than likelihood.

Miller is 36 now and yet he treated an away game at Dumbarton as if it was the biggest of his career.

That attitude rubbed off on the rest and it’s the reason why after a slow-ish start, Rangers scored six – and it should have been more – to record their best win of the season.

Miller has played over 700 professional games so far and has not thought about stopping.

There are some Rangers fans, and let’s be honest here, who were not cheering when they heard Warburton had extended the striker’s stay at Ibrox.

However, when the younger players see a guy who has done everything get a hat-trick against Dumbarton and give off the impression it was the first goals he’d even scored, then they will surely follow his lead.

Now you might say it’s only Dumbarton, a part-team with one stand up against the club with the second highest wage bill in the country, and you would be right.

However, this is where Rangers are and such games have to be treated in the proper way, rather than what seemed to be happening under the previous regime. The points have to be taken and while there have been and will be stumbles, performances like this will delight Mark Warburton.

When the teams ran out before kick-off, some fans could be forgiven for thinking that surely Miller with his money and past career should be doing anything else but running around in the Championship on a wretched day.

But he loves playing football and loves Rangers. The way he scored his first goal when he took a sore one having got to the ball a fraction before Dumbarton keeper Mark Brown told you all you needed to know about his state of mind.

It’s that kind of attitude that is going to get Rangers up, mixed with the good football they are capable of.

They still allow too many crosses into the box; Dumbarton had two decent chances with headers when the Rangers defence went AWOL. They will always give the opposition chances, even in a 6-0 rout.

Andy Halliday is a fine player, but he isn’t a deep lying midfielder. Warburton would do worse than to find one of them.

Hibs are a good team and will rightly fancy winning the title. Alan Stubbs may have mentioned that he senses teams have worked out Rangers and to some extent they have. But the win over Hibs and Saturday’s performance could well be a turning point.

We shall see.

James Tavernier was terrific again. He is never a right-back in a million years, he is way too attack-minded, but the lad is a talent and is another whose application could never be questioned.

Martyn Waghorn is one of those ‘what you see is what you get players.’ Same applies to Halliday, Jason Holt and Lee Wallace who is something of a consistency freak.

January days at the Cheaper Insurance Direct Stadium, formerly the Strathclyde Homes Stadium, are not filled with glory, but these are the fixtures that have to be won if Rangers are to avoid the unthinkable and spend another year out of the top tier.

The players showed at the weekend that they knew that match had to be treated the same way was the visit of Hibs to a packed Ibrox. It means that whatever else Warburton has done, he has got the message through that every game is a big one.