Smith happy with important win

06 March 2011 16:30
Rangers manager Walter Smith admits their narrow 1-0 win over St Mirren was crucial to their title hopes as he bids to steer his side through an injury crisis. The Scottish champions were without eight players for the trip to Paisley and were only able to name six substitutes, including under-19s striker Kane Hemmings who was on the bench for the first time. A first-half goal from Kyle Bartley was enough to secure the victory to take Rangers back within five points of SPL leaders Celtic, with two games in hand. And Smith wants more of the same from his depleted ranks against Kilmarnock next Sunday in a bid to keep the pressure on the Hoops. He said: "When you get a situation like the one we have where we are a number of games behind Celtic at the moment, it's important to get the win. From our own point of view, we have injury problems at the moment. "As far as the league is concerned, this game and next Sunday's game are vitally important for us in the sense that, after that, I would hope to see quite a number of our injured players coming back. So it was good to get a win here." Smith added: "We might have Vladimir Weiss back (for Thursday`s trip to PSV Eindhoven) but he is probably the only one. He's just got a badly bruised foot and I would hope that would settle a little bit. We have a depleted group but we just get on with it."

Source: PA