QUEENS boss Wullie Gibson heaped praise on his Queen of the South side for their performance against Rangers but stressed they must continue to play like that with Dunfermline heading to town.
The Doonhamers impressed during their 3-1 League Cup defeat to Premiership and Champions League giants Rangers at Ibrox on Tuesday night. About 900 away supporters travelled to Ibrox and they were able to celebrate a magical moment when Lee Connelly superbly dinked Allan McGregor to level the tie. Despite some heroic defending throughout, Gio van Bronckhorst’s Glasgow outfit proved to be too strong on the night.
However, Gibson – who elected not to be including in the playing squad for the glamour cup tie – believes his side showed “character, hard work and discipline” unlike last Saturday’s disappointing 3-1 league defeat at Falkirk.
He said: “I’m proud of the players, I said before to the players that it would be a tough game at a tough venue. I asked the boys to put in a performance as we felt we fell below our own standards against Falkirk on Saturday.
“We knew coming to Ibrox we’d need to be a lot better than we were and I thought the boys proved tonight that they can be a good team.
“We bounced back from an early goal and got a good goal ourselves. Ultimately we lose the game 3-1 and that’s what matters but it’s the manner of the defeat. I felt the manner of the defeat on Saturday wasn’t good enough.
“Sometimes you’ve got to take the positives when you get beat and I can take a lot of positives from tonight.
“Character, hard work and discipline, there’s three things we showed against Rangers. I said to the boys that hard work would be important as we needed energy all over the park. The boys gave a good account of themselves and they can be proud of that.”
The manager also praised the travelling support for making a noise at Ibrox and backing the team until the end.
Gibson added: “The support from the fans was brilliant. We knew with the ticket sales and the fans who came out and supported us that it was important we put on a display for them as they’ve travelled in their numbers. And they’ve been disappointed a lot recently, so that performance was for them.
“I know we lost the game 3-1 but there’s a way of losing a game of football. I spoke to Gio after the game and he said we played really well, that means a lot to get credit for us coming here and giving them a tough game.”
Queens now round the week off with a massive League One match against the undefeated Dunfermline on Saturday at Palmerston Park.
Gibson is adamant his team need to play like they did midweek to pick up their first home victory of the campaign.
He added: “Every game in this league is huge. I said that at the start of the season and I was laughed at. Nobody is going to give us three points in this league.
“I’m not naive enough to think that people look at Falkirk, Dunfermline and maybe Airdrie that they’ll be the main teams challenging.
“But it is a strong league and we’ve got to take it one game at a time.
“Dunfermline is in front of us on Saturday and it’ll be a test.
“They’ve not been beat yet and we need to give the same kind of performance we put in against Rangers if we’re going to get anything from them.”
