Kenny Miller seeks Championship cushion after Rangers book cup final place

Kenny Miller wants Rangers to follow up reaching the first final of the Mark Warburton era by re-establishing themselves as the promotion race front-runners.

The Light Blues booked their place in the Petrofac Training Cup final with a 4-0 win over St Mirren at Ibrox.

Now they can move three points clear of rivals Hibernian at the top of the Championship by beating Dumbarton at home on Tuesday night.

Gers' slip-up against Livingston last week allowed Hibs to draw level on points but Miller wants his team to once again take the initiative in the title fight.

The former Scotland striker - who notched his sixth goal of the season against St Mirren - said: It was good to be back in the starting line-up for the first time in a month or so and it was great to score.

I thoroughly enjoyed the game on Saturday and I thought we played really well, a lot things we had been working on during the week came to fruition and it was great to be back amongst the goals.

We will move on to Dumbarton now, this game has gone and there are a lot of positives we can take from it, we will look at it and we'll look to get better, which we always do.

It's an opportunity to get a little bit of daylight between us (and Hibs) so we'll be firmly focused and ready to go into that now.''

Goals from Jason Holt, Miller, Martyn Waghorn and a Sean Kelly own goal saw off St Mirren.

Rangers will now take on Peterhead in the April 10 final as they look to win the lower-league cup competition at the fourth attempt.

Rangers have suffered some humiliating exits from the tournament since being forced to make their way back up from the bottom rung of the Scottish game after going into administration in 2012.

Queen of the South knocked them out on penalties in the 2012-13 quarter-finals, while they fell to Raith Rovers in the final the season after.

Last year, it was Alloa who caused another stir with their victory over Ally McCoist's team in the last four but Miller wants to now finally lift the trophy for the first time before waving goodbye to the competition - which is only open to lower-league teams - forever.

He said: It will be my first final in this competition and any cup final is big, it's an opportunity to win some silverware and you always look back on it with fond memories.

I am thoroughly looking forward to it and let's hope we win it this time.

We're delighted to be in the final. It is this club's fourth attempt at this cup since we got put down and we haven't won it yet so I think it is important to win it - hopefully this will be our last year in it and we can finish it off on a positive note.''