Mols makes mark for Rangers

Scottish Review

Michael Mols came in from the cold to help Rangers avoid a costly Scottish Premier League defeat at home to St Johnstone yesterday, and prove to new manager Alex McLeish that reports of his demise are exaggerated.

The Dutch international has spent the last two years making one fruitless comeback after another from a knee injury, and Sunderland had wanted to take him on loan last week until McLeish insisted on time to assess the striker.

Mols took advantage of his first start of the season and scored the only goal with his first touch after just one minute, gathering a pass from his compatriot Ronald de Boer to steer a shot past goalkeeper Kevin Cuthbert.

However, any notion of a whitewash was dispelled by the bottom club, who gave the 49,000 crowd at Ibrox a nervous time, with the home keeper, Stefan Klos, denying the visiting strikers Willie Falconer and Rachid Djebaili to ensure that Rangers remain second.

Far more absorbing was the Edinburgh derby in front of an 18,000 sell-out crowd at Tynecastle, where John O'Neil snatched a 1-1 draw for Hibernian to deny Hearts their first success against their city rivals in six games.

O'Neil showed superb dexterity to strike a low shot from the edge of the box though a ruck of players and beyond the Hearts keeper, Roddy McKenzie, to lift the visitors. More important for the new manager, Franck Sauzée, was that the first goal of his reign at Hibernian cancelled out the ninth-minute lead supplied by Kevin McKenna's freak goal. The Canadian international reacted when Steve Fulton headed back Thomas Flögel's corner and stabbed a shot down into the ground which spun up over Nick Colgan.

Third-placed Livingston's recent poor run continued as they lost 1-0 at home to Kilmarnock, who avenged a 5-1 thrashing in the other meeting between the sides by virtue of an own goal from the Livingston defender Oscar Rubio, who turned in Peter Canero's cross. Dunfermline brought Aberdeen back to earth after their defeat of Celtic, with Lee Bullen scoring in a 1-0 win for the Fifers.