Glasgow Rangers claimed a 6-0 win over Hamilton but perhaps their hat-trick hero should have not seen the game out.
Rangers’ Joe Garner
Graeme Murty has admitted that he feared the worst immediately after Joe Garner’s challenge on Dougie Imrie during Rangers’ Scottish Cup quarter-final win over Hamilton on Saturday, the Daily Record reports.
The Gers booked their place in the semi-final in emphatic fashion as five second-half goals helped them to a 6-0 win over their Scottish Premiership rivals, with three coming from Garner.
However, Hamilton fans would certainly argue that Garner should not have been on the pitch to score his second and third following a challenge on Imrie that saw him only booked.
After sprinting in to close down Imrie, the Gers forward clattered into the Accies man while also swinging his leg, making no contact with the ball and sending the 33-year-old to the floor.
And Murty seemingly conceded that he would not have been able to complain had the referee produced the red card.
He said, as reported by the Record: “When it happened I thought: ‘God, what’s he done?’
“It was more clumsy than malicious but I can see how it might have looked dangerous and could have put us in a bad situation.”
Given that the score was 2-0 by the time Garner made the challenge, it is arguably surprising that he felt the need to make such a tackle.
Just like the incident that led to Rob Kiernan being sent off in midweek, Imrie was out wide near the halfway line and not running towards the Gers goal, and that may alarm Murty and whoever comes in as the club’s next permanent manager.
Although the fact that they are not shying away from challenges will be pleasing, the discipline could be questioned with both Kiernan and Garner guilty of reckless challenges in the last two games that really did not need to be made.
Luckily, given that there is an Old Firm game on the horizon, Garner avoided seeing the card that some will argue his challenge deserved.
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