Drama tie sees Rangers move within four
Hibernian 0 Rangers 1
Rangers emerged victorious from an extraordinary afternoon at Easter Road that saw two men sent off and two penalties awarded.
Dado Prso netted one to enable his side to reduce Celtic’s lead at the top to four points ahead of next week’s showdown at Ibrox.
Whether Nacho Novo will be involved remains to be seen however as he was sent off in the first half, with Hibernian defender Gary Caldwell later sent off for conceding the deciding spot-kick.
Prso missed a second penalty and Hibs hit the woodwork twice in a frantic 90 minutes.
The pre-match talk had centred around the return of Michael Ball to the Rangers first team for the first time since May, with the former England international using up one of the five games he can play before a clause worth £500,000 (€716,000) to previous employers Everton is triggered.
But he quickly became just another man on the pitch as an extraordinary miss by Garry O’Connor and Novo’s dismissal set the tone of the afternoon.
Rangers had done all the early attacking, with Novo firing across goal and wide after leaving Colin Murdock behind him on the right touchline to arrive in the box at speed.
But the visitors were well and truly caught out four minutes later, in the 20th minute, when O’Connor latched on to a ball from Derek Riordan, took it past Jean-Alain Boumsong and lofted the ball over the advancing Stefan Klos to render the Rangers goalkeeper utterly helpless.
It seemed as though the ball would bounce into the unguarded net and O’Connor must have thought so as he stood and watched only to realise it had instead spun back off a post to allow Ball to hack away.
The Novo incident was not far away, with the Spaniard shown a straight red card in the 28th minute by referee Willie Young, an official not known for his reluctance to be controversial.
Novo had clashed with Craig Rocastle, initially with the ball present and then again afterwards, with his offence apparently a kick at his opponent.
It meant the Spaniard, who had been in a rich scoring vein in the past few weeks, would miss next week’s Ibrox Old Firm derby – although an appeal to the Scottish Football Association was an option available to Rangers.
Two good chances came the way of the 10 men after Klos had pawed away a violent drive from Riordan that flashed through a crowded box but Peter Lovenkrands headed straight at Hibs goalkeeper Simon Brown and Boumsong headed wide after Dado Prso had nodded a free-kick across the six-yard box.
Rangers regrouped at the break, with Alex Rae replacing Lovenkrands having been rested following his remarkable 111-minute shift against Celtic in midweek on his return from injury.
Rocastle fired tamely wide before smashing a much more powerful drive just wide as the game crossed the hour mark without a breakthrough.
But controversy was not far away once more when Caldwell was sent off for conceding the penalty, with the Scotland international hacking Namouchi down from behind when the midfielder looked odds on to score.
Goalkeeper Brown was booked for a piece of gamesmanship by striding off his line to move the ball on its spot but Prso was not put off and calmly stroked the ball past him to give Rangers a 65th-minute lead.
Hibs manager Tony Mowbray made an instant double change, with O’Connor and Rocastle replaced by Sam Morrow and Gary Smith and minutes later a third switch was made when Murdock was replaced by Jamie McCluskey.
Smith was booked for impeding Prso after Namouchi had looked to put him through and it was something of a surprise given referee Young’s trigger-happy nature that he was not fingered as the last man and sent to the stands as well.
Hibs threw men forward in search of an equaliser but Rangers were determined, although Zura Khizanishvili was too much so for Young’s liking and was booked in the 79th minute for upending Stephen Glass.
McCluskey fired a good chance over after Steven Whittaker had set him up on the edge of the box and there was a flare-up on the touchline between Khizanishvili and Ian Murray that saw the Georgian replaced by Alan Hutton before he could get in any more trouble.
Namouchi passed up a great chance when Brown made a save and Prso fired a second penalty against a post with a minute remaining after Murray had brought down Fernando Ricksen after the Dutchman had motored on to a through ball from Boumsong.
Murray almost made him pay in stoppage time but suffered the same fate as O’Connor by heading against a post.
