Moving On Up

[ian1964 10,720]

By Andrew Dickson

 

ALLY McCOIST paid tribute to striker Kyle Lafferty after his double helped ease Rangers into the last four of the Scottish Cup.

 

Kyle Lafferty scores against HamiltonThe Northern Ireland hitman has been the subject of much criticism this season, thanks largely to the �£3million fee paid for him by the Light Blues last summer.

 

Lafferty is slowly repaying that figure and his brace this afternoon took his goals tally for the season to seven for the Ibrox men.

 

He also has one more for his country and with more than two months of the season still to go, it's the most prolific campaign of his fledgling career yet.

 

Assistant manager McCoist is pleased with the way Lafferty is progressing and believes there is plenty more to come from him in the years ahead.

 

He said: "My own personal opinion is that Kyle is a centre-forward rather than a left-midfielder and I feel he will develop into a very good one.

 

"A lot of people probably forget he is still relatively young but he has good experience for his age at international level with Northern Ireland.

 

Aaron scores from the spot"There are things we will continue to work on with him in terms of his movement and his positioning.

 

"But he is a completely different type of player to the likes of Kris Boyd, Kenny Miller and Nacho Novo and we're happy with how he is doing.

 

"I'm thrilled for him after his two goals today and I'm looking forward to working on with him as I feel there's enormous potential in there."

 

McCoist was just as happy with the way Rangers responded after their shock 1-0 loss to Inverness in midweek.

 

Four changes were made to the side that lost on Wednesday, with three of those coming in scoring.

 

As well as Lafferty, Steven Whittaker and Aaron found the net while Pedro Mendes and Lee McCulloch made successful comebacks from injuries.

 

McCoist added: "We played very, very well in patches and passed the ball about the way we wanted to at times.

 

Steven Whittaker scores"It was a difficult game for a variety of reasons but the movement from our front two, particularly in the first half, was good.

 

"There were times when we were a bit slack and could have been better but overall we are happy.

 

"In a cup tie, the most important thing is to come through it relatively unscathed and we did that.

 

"When you've lost your last game, how you react to that is a big thing and I thought the lads handled themselves really well today."