J Smith 15
Main 25
Match Information
Attendance: 15,000
Referee: W Webb (Glasgow)
Matchday: Saturday
Match Trivia
Who put the kill in Kilmarnock? Or, to bring it more up to date. Who gave the Nock, knock? The result say Rangers, but that can be questioned who? Good lord, are we catching the fever. To be serious, Killie should never have lost this game. One sympathised with them in having to take the field without defensive stalwarts in Milloy and Smith, especially as Smith is an influential captain. But when the final whistle came as a real blast to Killies hopes, the neutral spectators was full of chagrin at the Killie attack. The victory pot was fill and boiling over for Killie in the second half, but the forwards were all too timid to lift the lid, in case they would burn their fingers. No one would take on the responsibility of accepting the meal Rangers defence offered and so Rangers got out of the stew. Stew id not a nice word, but it is the proper one. Rangers were sizzled, boiled and grilled in that second half, and the aggravating thing was that Killie appeared to have no appetite. It was a great tribute to rangers that 15,000 spectators should gather on an unholy day of wind and rain, which compelled an earlier start and cut out the interval breather indoors. The Rangers clan among them must have been disappointed, and the second half to them a long-drawn-out agony. Rangers were then, frankly, a defending team, with something wrong in their vitals. A knock which Simpson brought upon himself, and which left him groggy, does not account for everything, and Rangers have a newer problem at back. There was no excuse at all for Rangers, who should have been eased of any anxiety with a two-goal lead in twenty-five minutes. These goals were against the run of play but deserved to rank as the victorious distinction between the teams in conception and completion! After 15 minutes, the three Ibrox half-backs fiddled the ball into a crescendo of attack, and from Venters back-heeler, Smith did not disturb the harmony with his gliding shot past Milelr a perfect goal. Ten minutes later, Andersons limitations were exploited by Kinnear, who had his mind more on the ball than the tackle, and a sudden yet exquisite cross laid it on for either Smith or Main, the winger getting the honour. Rangers looked like running away with the game after this and oozed into a soft defence. But the Killie forwards turned the tide and kept it flowing to the end. Yet they never realised the game was in their hands. J Robertson repeated an early miss at an open goal, else Killie would have been equal at half-time. Five minutes before the interval, Robertson had taken advantage of Rangers weakness at inner defence, but neither he nor his colleagues were prompted by that in the second half, when there were no goals. Otherwise, there might have been a handful going for Killie. Had there been a strategist in Killies ranks, say one like Alec James, things might have gone ill with Rangers. The Ibrox team took too much liberty in positional play and left themselves open for outmanoeuvring. Certainly, they were the more subtle and probably the more clever lot individually, but they had too many loose ends to be impressive. I thought Brown in his wanderings left Gray too open, for Dougie seldom has had such a perturbed day. Venters is essentially a forward, and Macaulay did nothing that can displace the Fifer regularly. The effervescent Kinnear struck wood twice in the first half, and was the best of Rangers fitful forwards, who were obviously playing to a smash-and-grab plan. Not an imposing Ibrox side.
