The Co-operative Insurance Cup semi-final game between Rangers and St Johnstone at ibrox, on Wednesday Feb 03 2010.
On a night that would have reminded Napoleon of his return trip from Moscow, Rangers continued their advance on a possible clean sweep of the Scottish honours with a victory over St Johnstone at snowswept Hampden Park.
Rangers booked their place in the Co-operative Insurance Cup final against St Mirren at the same venue on March 21 - and they could even afford to miss a penalty kick in the process.
Goals by Steven Davis - whose accomplishment rarely faltered amidst treacherous conditions - and Lee McCulloch put the Ibrox side well in control at the interval.
Walter Smith again had to do without his preferred attacking partnership of Kris Boyd and Kenny Miller, while Maurice Edu and DaMarcus Beasley - whose £50,000 sports car was torched outside his Glasgow home on Tuesday night - were unavailable for their midfield beats. Rangers still, however, had the resources to outpace their game opponents.
They were not, however, the beneficiaries of a doormat performance by St Johnstone who, with a touch of better fortune, would have been on the scoresheet themselves. Murray Davidson came closest with a header from Gary Irvine's dangerous near post cross, but his effort fell just wide.
Having said that, Rangers, too, could reflect on the full stretch - at times desperate - defending that stopped them supplementing their advantage. It was only acute awareness on the part of Dave Mackay that prevented Nacho Novo ahead after all of five minutes when the diminutive Spaniard timed his run perfectly to gather possession onside and unmarked and bolted towards the Saints box.
Graeme Smith bolted from his line but Novo nursed the ball around the goalkeeper and struck a placed effort just inside the near post and the attempt would have crossed the line but for Mackay's sliding interception to hook clear below his own crossbar. Novo's misfortune spurred the impressively noisy St Johnstone support - who were to be pitied their journey back to Perth - into loud and persistent taunting of the Rangers forward until he departed the proceedings, to be replaced by Steven Naismith, after an hour.
Novo, though, was entitled to the smile he sported on his way off, having set Davis up for Rangers' opener midway through the opening. The goal stemmed from a throw-in on the Rangers left which found Novo for a shot which fell to Davis , whose own effort was blocked by Mackay but took a deflection and fell towards Smith's right post. Davis reacted ahead of Danny Grainger to slash his drive into the net, although Saints claimed he had stepped behind the dead ball line and back on to the pitch.
Davis was part of the build-up when Rangers doubled their margin eight minutes before the break with a sweeping move that traversed the edge of the St Johnstone area. Davis fed play wide for the overlapping Steven Whittaker then stepped inside to make way for Lee McCulloch to accept a pass from his right-back and strike a low angled drive through a cluster of legs and beyond Smith, who may have been unsighted.
Saints, meanwhile, had seen a Filipe Morais shot spilled but taken at the second attempt by Neil Alexander and David Weir came within a fraction of heading inadvertently into his own net when he connected with Liam Craig's deflected free kick. Despite creating these alarms, Derek McInnes' players had spent most of the half quarantined close to their own box, a state of affairs the manager sought to remedy by sending Steven Milne on for Morais at the restart and invigorating his players with words that had them surging towards Alexander's goal for much of the opening to the second period.
However, they could not force the openings that might have brought them back into contention and Rangers should have put the match to bed when Naismith was taken down by Irvine for a penalty which the Rangers player insisted on taking, only to be thwarted when Smith guessed correctly, diving to his left to block the attempt.
Naismith may have been thwarted but Rangers were not and are able to look back on another fixture fulfilled on the march towards what could yet be an all-conquering campaign, a feat that would be remarkable given their financial constrictions.
