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Rangers progressed to the final of the Ramsdens Cup with a narrow win over Stenhousemuir at a chilly Ochilview on Tuesday night.
?Both managers felt their teams performed well.
Warriors boss Martyn Corrigan was greatly relieved that his team improved on the recent 8-0 drubbing they suffered at Ibrox.
Ally McCoist said that he had expected the much tougher game, and was most pleased that the long suffering Rangers fans now have a cup final to look forward to.
The game itself was competitive but lacking in goalmouth action; Stenhousemuir were happy to sit back and absorb pressure, and hit back on the very occasional break.
Rangers in turn restricted their efforts to long-distance ones, with Arnold Peralta smacking the cross bar from 35 yards, followed shortly after by a similar effort from Nicky Law.
In the second half, Stenhousemuir proved more adventurous, and almost took a surprise lead on 72 minutes when Darren Smith missed an open goal after good build-up work by Brown Ferguson.
Both managers had conflicting views on what proved to be a turning point, McCoist felt that there had been a foul in the build-up play, while Corrigan believed that Smith had been bundled over and perhaps should have earned a penalty.
But three minutes later, Rangers scored the only goal of the game; a long ball forward from Bilel Mohsni saw Warriors keeper Chris Smith come too far off his line to try to intercept it, only for Jon Daly to get to the ball before him and head it into an empty net.
Stenhousemuir heads went down at that point, and Rangers could have scored more had their finishing been better, with a Lee McCulloch header rattling the bar for a third time.
After the match, McCoist stressed that he sees the subsequent Ramsdens Cup final versus Raith Rovers as another milestone on Rangers road to recovery, although unusually that final will not take place until April 6 next year.
Meantime for McCoist, his focus remains on gathering as many league points as possible, and a possible Scottish Cup run beginning on Friday versus Airdrie at Ibrox.
