Rob Kiernan: Rangers reaping rewards of training-ground work on formation

Rangers defender Rob Kiernan believes some tactical work has helped them rediscover their top form.

Mark Warburton's side dropped five points in two games before Christmas, following a 2-2 home draw with Morton with defeat at Falkirk, allowing Hibernian to draw level at the top of the Ladbrokes Championship.

Since then they have scored 19 goals in four matches with the loss of four to re-impose themselves at the top of the table.

But they are only two points ahead following Hibernian's 3-1 victory over St Mirren on Saturday, and Kiernan knows he and his fellow defenders need to form a solid base when they face Morton again at Cappielow on Monday night.

Kiernan told his club's official website: 'You're not going to go through a season playing unbelievably well every week. You're always going to go through a bit of a sticky spell. I think we've found something in our formation that is working for us, and we have goals in our team that are coming from our strong base. We've done a lot of work on the training ground with our formation to make sure we aren't too vulnerable on the counter-attack, and it seems to be working as we are getting our rewards on the pitch.

He added: 'Every team wants to go and score goals, but defending is just as important. We let the guys up the pitch do their job and ours is to keep clean sheets and keep the ball out of our net.'

Rangers were impressive in a 4-0 win in Greenock in September but assistant boss David Weir is well aware of the threat posed by Jim Duffy's team, who are pushing for a play-off place.

'It will be really tough,' Weir said. 'We drew with them at Ibrox and they thoroughly deserved their point. They are hard to beat, they've done well this season and you can see that from their league position. They weren't fancied at the start of the season but they've done really well. All the games have been competitive that they're involved in and, as the last game showed at Ibrox, it will be really difficult.''