MARK WARBURTON admits Rangers will have to dig deep to clinch the wins to get them over the Championship winning line this season.

The Light Blues moved eight points clear of title rivals Hibernian with a hard-fought 1-0 win over Queen of the South on Sunday as Kenny Miller’s moment of magic lit up a competitive encounter at Palmerston.

Rangers have also recorded narrow league wins over Falkirk and Raith in recent weeks, while they were held by bottom of the table Alloa last weekend.

With just eleven games to go this term, there is plenty to play for below the promotion shoot-out in the Championship as teams battle for a play-off spot and fight for their second tier futures.

Warburton’s side have home clashes with St Mirren, Raith Rovers and Morton on the horizon as they look to edge ever close to a top flight spot.

And the Ibrox knows the Gers will have to be at their best to see games out and add crucial points to the board.

Warburton said: “You are looking at teams now, at this stage of the season, if they are 1-0 down they are going to take an attitude of ‘so what, we may as well lose by two or three’ and give it a real go.

“And you saw that. You saw a team fighting. They see fourth place in sight and they are going to push really hard for that.

“They have been on a run of good form and they were very keen to get the points.

“We have got to recognise that in the last few games of the season teams will really give it a go.

“Some are fighting relegation, and the attitude will be ‘if we are going to lose, lose by two, three, four and give it a proper go.

“We have to recognise it and deal with it and you do that by taking care of the football.

“[On Sunday], for the last part of the game, we didn’t do that.

“It is what it is and we have got to learn from that.

“Wes (Foderingham) pulled off a couple of outstanding saves, Wes was superb.

“There were some good performances and in the first half I thought we controlled it.

“But we have to learn and kick-on. A second goal would have finished the game completely and we didn’t get that second goal despite numerous chances. Then we had a poor period.”