Rangers may be prepared for another scrap in tonight’s Scottish Cup tie, but Dunfermline manager Jim Jefferies has rubbished claims his Pars were overly physical the last time the sides clashed in Glasgow.
‘Bruising’ was the word of choice used by many media outlets to describe the league game between the teams at Ibrox in November after the home side’s Andy Little, Lee McCulloch and Richard Foster all needed hospital treatment following a hard-fought 3-1 victory.
Ahead of tonight’s fifth-round tie, Ally McCoist will no doubt warn his players to expect another encounter not for the faint-hearted with a quarter-final place at stake.
However, Jefferies insists his players have done nothing to deserve their hatchet men tag and hopes they let their football speak for itself.
“Everybody is buzzing and the players have nothing to lose,” he told Courier Sport. “Our targets this year are pretty simple: to get to the play-offs and give it our best shot.
“The play-offs would be cup finals for us if we manage to get there, which we’ll try hard to do, so we can go to Ibrox thinking ‘you never know in cup football’.
“Rangers will be big favourites and quite rightly so. They are at home, they’ve got a stronger and more experienced team than us, and I don’t buy into this idea that every time they’ve played Dunfermline we’ve been more physical.
“I just find that a bit of an unbelievable statement when you look at the strength and power of Rangers.
“If it means that we competed well against them then I’m delighted about that because that’s one thing you’ve got to do make sure they know they are in a game.
“But we’re a footballing side, everybody should know that, and we’ll go there and endeavour to play, not give the ball away so easily and grab our chances if we create anything.
“That’s the only disappointment from the last performance is that I think we got into areas where we could have done better the final ball, whether we made the wrong decision to pass it instead of taking people on or vice-versa, having more shots, have a go more.
“That’s the bit we lacked the last time and we never really threatened them as much as we could. We just want to go there and give a good account of ourselves.”
Some bookmakers have the Pars at odds as long as 14/1 to upset Rangers on their own patch, although Jefferies reckons his team deserve more credit than that.
He noted: “What price were Morton to beat Celtic in the League Cup? What price were Gretna to get to the Scottish Cup final? What price were Ross County to get to a cup final? What price were Albion Rovers to beat Motherwell?
“It happens in football. Cup football is all about being in the next round at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you play.
“One thing we’ll have to do, we know that Rangers by their own admission have been in games where they’ve not played well and won.
“That’s a sign of a hard team to beat, if they’ve not played well and won.
“What I will say is that if we don’t play well, we’ll not win. We need to play well because Rangers have proved that they can not play well and win.
“Everybody has just got to give that little bit extra, concentrate harder, do the right things and not make mistakes, and if you do that you are always in with a chance.”
Indeed, Jefferies needs only points to that Ibrox game in November as proof his side can match Rangers, as the hosts needed a 71st minute penalty to get their noses in front with Jordan Moore sent off in the same incident.
Jon Daly made it 2-0 but Josh Falkingham reduced arrears before defender Bilel Mohsni’s stoppage time goal put extra gloss on the scoreline.
“It will stand the players in good stead that they have gone to Ibrox and given a good account of themselves,” Jefferies stressed.
“The penalty went against them, they lost a man and then it was suddenly going to be a tall order, but they never gave up and even after losing a goal they got it back to 2-1 and just got caught at the end.
“It was a great experience for them the last time because most of the players hadn’t really been to watch a game at Ibrox, let alone play there.
“But both games we’ve played against them this season should stand us in good stead and we’ve got to have that belief when we go there.”
The Pars will be missing all three new signings, namely Danny Grainger, Ross Forbes and Jonathan Page, as they are cup tied.
However, centre half Callum Morris should make a long-awaited return from injury, while Ryan Thomson has shaken off an ankle knock and Allan Smith could also be in the squad as he recovers from a bout of illness.