The Young Gers continued their strong start to the league campaign, recovering from an early setback inside two minutes to score four without reply in Dumbarton.
Speaking to RangersTV after the victory, McCallum was pleased with his team’s endeavour: “I loved the energy that the team brought tonight. We can talk about the decision making and the quality, but without the energy it's very difficult to get yourself to those points. I thought tonight from the first whistle it was evident.
“The frustration is losing the goal in the manner that we did - that comes from decision making. We spoke to the backline before and said that sometimes you just need to be a defender and deal with it. That pushed us on the back foot a little bit, but we never wavered in terms of what the challenge was tonight, which was to play with a speed and intensity which East Stirlingshire would find difficult to cope with. We also had to make sure we carried a constant attacking threat which we made sure was there.
“4-1 was what we got to but I thought with the chances we had we could have challenged ourselves to be a little bit better. We knew we had to defend at various different points and we've had to do that as well. I'm really pleased at the manner in which the lads went about the performance.”
Central to the victory was a hat-trick from Robbie Ure, with the forward bundling the ball over the line following a goalmouth stramash to equalise for the Gers in the first half, before scoring twice inside 11 minutes after the interval to cap off a fine performance.
McCallum continued: "We said to him that you can get the perfect goals, the sweet strikes, but there is also the challenge as a forward player to attack areas of the goalmouth that makes it difficult. It's up to the crossing player to make sure that we have a chance to convert.
“Robbie's put himself in a couple of situations tonight where he's earned the right to get the goals that may look easy, but they're not. I'm pleased that Robbie has added them to his game tonight.”
Alex Lowry also made his eagerly-anticipated return from injury, playing the opening 45 minutes and impressing with his range of passing.
He added: "He [Alex] trained with us a couple of days earlier this week. He's been training with the first team for a little bit of time now, so this is the time to get back on the pitch and play some games. He's gotten himself to 45 minutes and he's feeling quite good.
“It's just a case of continuing to follow the guidance that we need from the first team and medical staff to make sure we get him to a point where he can go longer. It's then up to Alex to push himself back into contention for the first team.”
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