Liam Smith admits he was left with mixed emotions after scoring his first goal for Dundee United.
The right-back will store his superb strike away in the memory bank but wishes it had counted towards a positive result for the Tangerines.
Smith, who troubled Rangers with his runs up the flank, showed terrific composure and technique to fire the equaliser in off the far post after James Tavernier had put the Light Blues ahead with a superb free kick on Sunday.
However, the runaway league leaders took all three points thanks to Connor Goldson’s header that made it 2-1 just before the break.
Memory bank
Smith said: “Especially when you don’t score many, you always remember the goals you do score.
“That will go into the memory bank.
“To be honest, when it came off my foot I didn’t really see exactly where the ball went.
“I did eventually see it come back off the post and go the right way into the net.
“I was delighted, obviously.
“But when you don’t win or get a result, obviously that takes the shine off it.
“It is more about wanting to contribute to getting a result more than anything for me and we lost the game.”
Game plan working
Smith, justifiably, felt United had a good first half, despite going in a goal down at the interval.
They then crawled back into a defensive shell as Steven Gerrard’s men went hunting for a third in the second period.
Smith said: “We had a game plan that was working and we limited them to very little for a while in the first half.
“To lose the game to two set-plays, I think we have to be disappointed.
“You set up to stay in the game and to stop them and I think we limited their number of chances.
“The first goal was a bit of quality that you can do nothing about.
“As for the second one, we will have a look back and see what we could have done better to defend that setplay.
“Overall, we were disappointed to lose the game to two setpieces.”
Smith was close to the controversial incident that saw Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos receive just a booking for striking home defender Mark Connolly in the face with a combination of elbow and forearm.
Not 100% sure
However, the United man admitted he wasn’t 100% sure at the time that the Colombian deserved a red instead.
“To be honest, it happened that quickly that you react because you think something happened but we’ve not seen it back so I can’t really say how bad it was,” said Smith.
“On the pitch, you think something has happened so you claim and shout to the ref but he deemed it a booking.
“He (Connolly) didn’t really see it because he won the ball and his eye was on the ball the whole time.
“He actually said in there (the dressing room) that he didn’t see it coming.
“Like I’ve said, I don’t really know how bad it was and whether or not it was worth more than a booking.
“The ref gave it as a booking so we just had to get on with it.”
With that toughest of fixtures behind them, it doesn’t get much easier for the Tangerines when they travel to Easter Road to face Hibs on Saturday.
However, Smith believes they can take something tangible out of the Rangers game even though it was lost.
He added: “There were positives for us and I feel, particularly in the first half, that we managed to get up the pitch and create a couple of chances ourselves.
“We will now go over it all but there were definitely good things to take from the game on our side.
“We now have to take it forward and maybe defend resolutely like that against other teams, while creating chances at the other end as well.”