St Johnstone will use that Ibrox triumph as inspiration to help secure the result that will make their stay at the bottom of the Premiership a very brief one, according to Scottish Cup quarter-final hero Zander Clark.
The Perth goalkeeper famously got his head to an extra-time corner to set-up Chris Kane’s dramatic equaliser before doing his bit in the subsequent penalty shoot-out.
April 25th was a once in career occasion but Clark is confident Callum Davidson’s men can upset the odds again when they face the league leaders in midweek.
🤯🤯 Unbelievable scenes in the Scottish Cup at Ibrox!
🙌 St Johnstone goalkeeper Zander Clark assisted an equaliser for Christopher Kane in stoppage-time of extra-time and he went on to save TWO penalties in the shoot-out win over Rangers!pic.twitter.com/Pem8UmyZLm
— Sporting Life 🎯🔴🎾⛳️🥊🏏🏉 🏈 (@SportingLifeFC) April 25, 2021
“Obviously last season was good for us there,” he said.
“It will be the first game at Ibrox since that one.
“We’ll look to pull on the memories of the performance we put in that night and try and get another big result on Wednesday night.”
Siege mentality
The Scotland squad man is adamant that putting the disappointment of the late and controversial defeat to Aberdeen on Saturday behind them won’t be a problem.
“A couple of decisions have gone against us and it’s obviously frustrating,” said Clark, who got the best view in the stadium of Teddy Jenks’ handball before he scored.
“I obviously saw it at the time. I don’t know how one of the three of them (officials) can’t see it.
Winning goal and certainly no doubt strikes arm of Jenks. (via @GarrMunro) pic.twitter.com/jXnYYpC04E
— St Johnstone 1884 (@stjohnstone1884) December 11, 2021
“We can’t let that frustration have a knock-on effect into the games we’ve got coming up.
“We’ll dust ourselves down, reflect on what we could have done better and prepare for Wednesday night.”
When a side falls to the foot of the table and refereeing decisions are costing them badly, the dressing room ‘siege mentality’ kicks in.
“We’ve got enough experience in there to know how to go about it in the right way and get the best out of each other,” said Clark.
“It’s down to us to get results on the board.
“Games are coming thick and fast so there’s no time to worry about what’s happened in the past.
“We’ll go to Ibrox with a positive attitude and put the manager’s game plan into action.
“We know we can sort it out.
“It’s disappointing to see ourselves at the bottom obviously but we’ve got the quality of player to climb the league.
Big improvement
“The performance against Aberdeen was much better than at Dens. We were poor that night.
“This time we put our stamp on the game and took control in the second half.
“We’ve hit the post and it wasn’t as if we lost on the back of a poor performance.
“Sometimes things just don’t go your way.
“Training has been good – a high standard with real intensity.
“The boys are pulling together.
“If they don’t score with the handball we could well be coming away with a 0-0 or nicking a goal for a win.
“These small things are going against us.
“It’s not through lack of effort or commitment that we lost that game.”
