Against a Dunfermline side chained to the foot of the table and in real peril of being relegated to the First Division, Rangers made heavy weather of eking out a single-goal victory.
Charlie Adam’s early goal gave hope of another onslaught to match the 5-0 beating handed out to Dundee United the previous week but in truth Rangers never looked like scaling those heights again as they thrashed about willingly without putting Dunfermline under any undue pressure.
Looking to banish the memory of the Scottish Cup defeat on their previous visit to these parts, Rangers had started purposefully and Nacho Novo should have scored within the opening 90 seconds but shot tamely at Dorus de Vries after fastening on to Kris Boyd’s flick on.
Smith handed David Weir his debut, partnering the former Everton man with Karl Svensson at the heart of the defence and slotting Brahim Hemdani into a midfield role in place of the missing Jeremy Clement.
Weir had been signed primarily to add aerial strength to the backline but found himself second best to Jim Hamilton who escaped from his former Hearts team-mate to lay a pass into the path of Stephen Crawford whose lash goalwards was well blocked by Allan McGregor.
It was instant redemption for the goalkeeper who had caused palpitations among the visiting support just moments earlier when he came for but completely missed Jim O’Brien’s inswinging corner, the ball drifting narrowly past the far post.
Rangers continued to enjoy territorial advantage only for the offside flag to prematurely curtail most of their attacking intentions.
On the one occasion the flag stayed down, de Vries reacted smartly to parry Barry Ferguson’s drive after neat build up play by Chris Burke and Adam.
The standard of play dropped noticeably after that – a Burke run and shot that ended up high in the stand was a rare highlight – but for Rangers there was at least the comforting sight of Weir more than holding his own in the aerial battle with Hamilton.
Rangers could have conceded an equaliser just before the break only for Svensson to launch himself at Crawford’s powerful shot to keep his side in front while bookings for Ferguson and Phil McGuire at least injected some fight and passion into a lacklustre contest,
The second half offered more of the same combative fare but with little finesse; Adam chose to ignore an unmarked Novo and saw his shot blocked before de Vries did well to once more deny Ferguson after good play by Hemdani.
The niggly undertone that had marred the end of the first half was becoming increasingly prevalent as the tackles got later and later and the bookings stacked up.
From time to time the squabbling stopped and some football broke out with de Vries doing well to claw away Novo’s deflected shot and Kris Boyd heading wide from the resultant corner.
It was dire stuff at times and, in truth, hard to differentiate between the team rock bottom of the SPL and the one currently in second place as Rangers toiled willingly but without ever really looking like adding to Adam’s early goal.
The sight of Ian Murray galloping goalwards from the left-back slot before trundling a weak shot that de Vries gathered comfortably said it all about Rangers’ attacking intentions.
The niggling feeling that Dunfermline could yet sneak a point was growing with each passing moment and Hamilton should have at least hit the target with a header that arced over the crossbar from all of three yards.
Further late chances followed for the Pars to sneak a point but Rangers held on to record the all-important victory.