DAN Neil says he couldn’t have picked a better moment to score the first brace of his career as his double propelled Rangers to a dominant 3-0 Old Firm victory at Ibrox this afternoon.
The summer recruit produced an outstanding performance in the engine room and capped it off with two supreme finishes to bookend Kevin Kelsy’s first Rangers goal.
It was a memorable derby triumph at the first time of asking for the 24-year-old - wearing the captain's armband - and lifted the Gers into the last four of the Premier Sports Cup, where they will square off against Aberdeen.
Speaking to RangersTV after the win, the midfielder said of a terrific afternoon in Govan: “It was unbelievable. It’s a bit of an adrenaline dump right now.
“I need to give massive credit to all the lads. Everyone did their jobs to an absolute tee. The fans really were our 12th man today, and they helped us get that result.
“It was my first ever brace in my career. It was an unbelievable feeling scoring one, never mind the two.
“I can’t really remember the first goal as it was a bit of a blur.
“For the second one, because we were 2-0 up, I was calm, and it was probably the better finish of the two. I tried to stay as calm as I could around the penalty box.
“It’s not normally my forte, as I’m sure plenty of the lads will tell you from shooting sessions in training, but they went in today.”
With over 50,000 packed inside Ibrox, the home supporters certainly played their part in today’s triumph.
Neil added: “The influence of the fans was massive, from coming into the ground, the warm-up, the first whistle to the absolute last.
“You could see the intensity of the lads, feeding off the fans and atmosphere, and running around at the end trying to find another goal while keeping a clean sheet when the game was pretty much done.
“In previous games, we’ve had to surrender the ball, but today we were on the front foot a lot more.
“There was a lot more man-to-man. The intensity and composure in transition- I thought we hurt them really well.
“We need to build our foundations off not conceding goals because we have the talent down the other end to go and score goals.
“A massive asset any team can have is keeping them out at your end. We’ve shown that over the last few games, and we need to keep building on our attacking play.”
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