Stephen Robinson was almost back in his car the last time St Mirren bagged a winner against Rangers.
Now the Buddies boss knows his team will need to hit top gear if they’re to pull off a repeat on Sunday.
The then Motherwell manager was one of only a few at the game as Conor McCarthy fired in an injury-time goal to dump the Ibrox side out of the League Cup in December 2020.
Robbo had already left his seat at the SMISA Stadium by that point and so missed Saints sealing their first win over Rangers in nine years.
But he saw enough to know what it’s going to take to pull off a similar shock and hand Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s men a third defeat in eight days.
St Mirren need three other results to go their way this afternoon for them to have any chance of sneaking into the top six before the split.
But even if that has gone by tomorrow’s noon kick-off, Robinson still wants to see his players put on the sort of display that stunned Rangers 16 months ago.
The Northern Irishman said: “I was actually at that cup game last season. I was heading for the car park when I heard the roar of the winning goal going in.
“But the work ethic that night was great and they showed great character. It was a great performance, yet you need things to go your way against Rangers.
“You need the referee to be on your side and you need boys to play at the top end of their game. Rangers, or Celtic, also need to have a bit of an off day.
“You can’t go chasing lost causes as they’ll pick you off. Then you need to wait for your moment and take it when it comes along.
“You have to stay in the game, as you will get chances through set-plays. We have to be diligent at all times and defend well to give us that opportunity to be in the game.
“We have players at the top end of the pitch who I believe can hurt them. We have real pace and energy which we showed against Motherwell.”
Rangers will arrive in Paisley licking their wounds after back-to-back defeats to Celtic and then Braga.
But Robinson reckons they’ll still be able to put out a formidable side no matter who Van Bronckhorst selects.
He added: “Rangers are always a hard team to play against. I don’t think the two results will make a difference to their level of performance. It’s going to be a test for us.
“We will know whether we need a win to get into the top six but we also need points to finish as high as we can.”
Robinson roasted his players after last weekend’s loss to Motherwell and said some had had their heads turned by transfer talk.
But he insisted everyone was still in it together going into the last six games of the campaign and added: “We are well prepared. The boys have been fantastic this week and we have had a great response since losing to Motherwell.”
“They know they can do better and they said that themselves. If I had said we defended well, people would have laughed at me.
“We have a good bunch of honest boys in there and they know when they can do things better and I have no doubt they will.”
