GRAEME Murty praised his young side for standing up to the challenge of Aberdeen as they came from behind to win 2-1 this afternoon.
A number of under-18’s featured in the Development squad for the match, with the head coach pleased with the way they slotted into the team.
He said: “It was a good game it was a good challenge for our young players, I think we finished the game with six under-18’s on the pitch which is fantastic and two of them scored the goals.
“We took the game for what it was, it was an opportunity for guys to really work extremely hard and show us what they are made of and I thought for the majority of it they managed to do that.”
Rangers were 1-0 down at the break, with Murty encouraged by the second-half response.
He continued: “We needed a bit more penetration in the final third, we needed more runs off the ball and when Aberdeen did get into our final third areas we were too eager to collapse into the box.
“We needed to be braver and stay higher and I thought the guys managed to do that.
“It was a good opportunity for our young players to show their knowledge but also to attempt to dictate in the manner that we want them to and I thought that they showed really really good bits to their game.
“They are never going to get everything right, we know that, we understand that but the intent was there, the understanding was there and quality was there.”
Murty praised his two goalscorers as strikes from Ross McCausland and Ciaran Dickson gave Rangers the victory late on.
He added: “There are certain people you would look at them and think I’m not sure I would fancy you hitting that one but Ross has just shown that he has got a real eye for goal and the strike that he hit was a phenomenal one so fair play to the kid for being on the front foot and for being confident enough to bring his shooting to a game of this level.
“He got his reward and we are thankful to him but we are not really surprised because we see it from him quite often.
“Ciaran is a really interesting guy because he possesses some wonderful technique, we are still building things onto him in terms of capacity and in terms of understanding but he deals with the ball very very well.
“It would’ve been very easy for him on the edge of the box to lash at the ball and really try and hit it hard but he didn’t he just caressed it and passed it into the bottom corner which is something we encourage but it is different us encouraging it in training and us encouraging it in development sessions to actually going and doing it in the pressure of the game.
“I thought it was a very key indicator of where his mindset is when he gets around the box he is very relaxed and he is very sure of his own ability which bodes well for the future.”