A clinical display from the home side in the first-half left Rangers with a mountain to climb as goals from Lana Golob, Hayley Lauder and Lisa Forrest rendered events at Meadowbank, with the Gers requiring a Hibernian victory in the Edinburgh Derby, meaningless.
Forrest then grabbed a hat-trick with two finishes in the second period to stretch the hosts advantage further, bookending Emily Whelan’s long-range strike.
Rangers will look to dust themselves down quickly and end a campaign which has secured UEFA Champions League qualification with silverware as they square off against Celtic in the Scottish Cup final in seven days’ time at Hampden Park.
Leanne Crichton named just the solitary change to her side from last weekend’s emphatic Old Firm success, introducing Camille Lafaix into the midfield in place of Jodi McLeary.
With the sun shining in Glasgow and the league championship up for grabs, it was standing room only at Petershill Park.
Rangers were buoyed by a terrific away contingent who knew two victories, one for their side here and a Hibernian triumph over league leaders Hearts, would deliver an improbable SPWPL title.
But the task in hand was still sizeable for Crichton’s charges, playing against a City side who, albeit with little to play for in the context of the league, snatched the Sky Sports Cup from the Gers earlier this season.
Their threat was underlined inside three minutes when Lisa Evans advanced down the left and lofted a hopeful cross into the penalty area which forced Jenna Fife to backpedal and watch the ball sail over her crossbar.
Down the opposite end, the City winger was guilty of clipping Calliste Brooskshire as she motored down the left-hand side. She was grateful that referee opted against an early yellow card.
However, the home side threw a spanner in the works when they broke the deadlock on 11 minutes.
A corner was lofted in from left where Golob rose highest and powered a header beyond Fife from five yards out.
Rangers could be forgiven for their early anxiety given what was at stake, but they were perhaps fortunate that City didn’t double their advantage quickly when Lisa Forrest broke through down the left. When her low effort was parried out by Fife, Natalia Wrobel met the looping ball on her head but could only arrow her effort straight into the palms of the Rangers goalkeeper.
Those packed inside Petershill Park certainly had one eye on their mobile phones for notifications from Meadowbank, and they were quick to let the players on the pitch know when Hibs took an early lead themselves through an Eilidh Adams spot-kick.
One quickly became two for last season’s champions, but any momentum boost it provided those in blue was swiftly quashed when City netted their second nine minutes before the interval to leave Crichton’s side with an uphill battle.
Again, it was down the flanks in which the hosts were deriving their joy, and when Evans’ delivery from the left dropped invitingly between the edge of the danger area and the penalty spot Lauder arrived to crash a powerful volley beyond Fife.
The situation worsened for Rangers minutes before the half-time interval when another lofted corner from the home side, this time from goalscorer Lauder, once more wreaked havoc as Forrest met the delivery and headed home a third for City.
Crichton rung the changes at half-time in search of a response from her side, introducing Kathy Hill and Mia McAulay.
It almost immediately engineered a goal for the away side as McAulay was at the heart of the action in helping free Brookshire down the left whose clever pull-back in search of Katie Wilkinson saw the forward sweep into the grateful arms of Erin Clachers.
However, their early endeavour in the second period was quickly clipped as City stretched their already unassailable advantage with a fourth of the afternoon.
Their prowess from set-piece situations continued as they bundled home from a third corner of the day when a clearance landed only as far as Forrest and the winger lashed an unstoppable volley into the top corner.
City rung up five when Whelan set her sights on the far corner from distance and fizzed a low effort into bottom corner and out of the reach of Fife, before another was added when a cross from the right-hand side was met by Forrest who grabbed her hat-trick with a glancing header.
RANGERS: Fife, Austin (Mengwen, 73), Boyce (Hill, 45), Eddie, Docherty, Cruft (Black, 73), Shin Ji, Lafaix (McAulay, 45), Berry, Brookshire (Hay, 63), Wilkinson
Subs not used: Kelly, Pegram, Sabajo, Connolly-Jackson
GLASGOW CITY: Clachers, Muir, Lauder, Golob (Brownlie, 52), Forrest, Wrobel (Warrington, 88), Whelan, Evans (McLaughlin, 88), Smit, Motlhalo, Gray (Maatta, 76)
Subs not used: Gibson, Harrison, Anderson, Thomas, Tanaka
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