Battling Gers delight Smith
14 Mar 2008 - 07:43:50
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- Battling Gers delight Smith
Rangers manager Walter Smith hailed the resilience of his side after they reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup with an aggregate victory over Werder Bremen.
The Gers went down 1-0 in Germany on Thursday night, but progressed into the draw for the last eight after earlier securing a 2-0 first-leg advantage.
"I certainly knew it was going to be that type of match," admitted Smith.
"We could not have done any better tonight. We defended very well and we had to be extremely resilient. I could not have asked more of the group.
"One thing Bremen do is they leave themselves very open to counter-attacks, so I was a little bit disappointed we could capitalise on that.
"We had a lot of bad luck as well but managed to get through and we're very happy.
"I thought we did extremely well after the goal. I thought there could have been a reaction to losing that goal especially at that time but they held on and Allan McGregor made a couple of fantastic saves.
"They defended very well and it was the resilience and will to win that sent them through."