Tell the truth and shame the devil

How does Jon Daly feel now after his remarks about the Hearts players going down as if they'd been shot by snipers to get Rangers players into trouble with the referee at Tynecastle on Saturday ?

Does that include Kevin McHattie, the one who's now facing three months out of the game with medial ligament damage after getting on the wrong side of Kenny Miller and having to leave the pitch on a stretcher ?

Daly's a likeable man who gives the impression that he agrees to meet the press after matches because nobody else fancies the job of fronting up to explain themselves.

He's the go to guy for the Ibrox P.R. department when Rangers have had a poor result and/or performance because he'll confront the truth and give an honest assessment of any situation in a politely spoken manner.

But this time he's so far wide of the mark with his accusations of cheating it's a worry.

When the normally rational, circumspect individuals are sufficiently deluded to make wild allegations they can't substantiate there's a loss of sympathy for them.

Daly was only being street-wise in the same post-match interview when he diplomatically supported his manager and admitted the Rangers players could be doing more to help Ally McCoist as the clamour for his head grows by the game.

That is no more, and no less, than you'd expect from any player in his position. The inner cynic tells you employees placed in that position are unlikely ever to say what they truly feel about those who employ them in the team.

That's why managers are universally referred to as "Gaffer" by those with a respect for the shop floor language of the dressing room.

St. Mirren's Steven Thompson was asked on television on Sunday night if their dressing room was fully behind Tommy Craig after a 3 - 0 defeat from Hamilton Accies prompted a show of discontent among the travelling support at New Douglas Park.

"One hundred per cent," he replied from his pundit's place on the Sportscene set.

I'll give Thommo my home address and he can pay me a house call if he feels like appearing in person and questioning the fairness of what I'm about to state.

But if the St. Mirren dressing room is, without exception, united behind the manager at this time then it'll be the first one ever to have exhibited that kind of un-swerving togetherness at a time when results are poor and the spectre of relegation has started to form in front of the fans' eyes.

Journalists are used to being looked in the eye and told something they know is a version of the truth presented for public consumption.

The manager or player filling their head full of nonsense knows the real truth of any matter is sometimes reserved for private use only.

But it's for a long standing sceptic to say that none of the Hearts players who hit the deck on Saturday went there in an attempt to deceive the referee.

And the country's top match official, Craig Thomson, was extremely lenient when he allowed Miller and Kris Boyd to get away with yellow cards when they should have been sent off along with Rangers' Steven Smith.

Everyone from the boardroom to the manager's office has been complicit in making the last two and a half years at Ibrox a textbook exercise in how not to handle the after effects of administration.

The chance to re-structure the club, on and off the park, has been wantonly destroyed in an orgy of un-thinking spending on new players and other examples of fiscal mis-management.

What's done is done in that respect, and the bits that aren't over and done with are now in the hands of the fraud squad.

But Saturday's loss to Hearts was tinged with malice as players who should have known better allowed frustration and disappointment to get the better of them.

This is not the way to win football matches, far less win friends and influence people that you're going about your business in the right way.

You can try and pull the wool over peoples eyes with suggestions of unfair treatment, but that doesn't mean to say we have to believe a single word of it.

For example, Celtic's Chief Executive says their refusal to pay part-time employees the living wage is understandable because they're only a football club and not to be held responsible for society's ills.

What about the banner inside Celtic Park which says they are "More than a club ?"

You can't be more than something when it suits you and less than something when it doesn't.

So the moral of the story is, regardless of the game's current standard, there needs to be a greater regard for telling it like it is.

• Hugh Keevins