Rangers loss will hurt Motherwell 'for a while' as moment that ended final hopes rued after Ibrox fans turned

Dan Casey says it will take time for Motherwell to get over their semi-final heartbreak agaisnt Rangers - but the team are still in a good place after their Hampden experience.

Stuart Kettlewell’s side went down 2-1 to the Ibrox club on Premier Sports Cup semi-final duty on Sunday. Andy Halliday had them ahead in the game and they were a goal up at half-time through it, with Rangers fans raging with their own team amid a turbulent start to the term.

Cyriel Dessers’ goal right after the restart calmed things down from an Ibrox perspective and Motherwell failed to lay much of a glove on them after that, with Nedim Bajrami applying the finishing touch for those in blue. Motherwell are fourth in the Premiership and play St Johnstone before 2024’s final international break.

Casey sensed the fans had turned on their opponents but has been left disappointed that Motherwell couldn’t capitalise. He said: "Overall, it was quite frustrating. We didn’t really get ourselves going. We said to ourselves don’t concede early in the second half.

“But they got a quick goal and sort of killed the game a bit for us. You could hear their fans were getting on them a bit before then. If we had held out for longer, who knows what would have happened.

“But we shot ourselves in the foot and conceded. It was a tough ask to get back into it. We sort of rode our luck for a bit but they came up with their goods in the end. It’s going to hurt us for a while. I don’t think we necessarily played great, but we had a chance.

“It was a semi-final and it doesn’t really matter if we play well. Going 1-0 up, doing well in the first half and then getting hit with a sucker punch straight after half time sort of killed our momentum. We showed glimpses of what we can do with the ball but we just needed to do a bit more.”

Casey has been in Kettlewell’s plans from the get-go of his interim reign until now, with the manager finding the club in 2023 facing a relegation battle. The Irishman thinks the club has progressed since those times and the semi-final proved a beneficial experience for growth.

He added: “I was here when the manager came in for his first game and we were in a bad place. Since then, we have grown as a team. We’ve got a squad that’s capable of doing well this season. That shows in the league with what we’re doing.

“Getting to the semi-final of the cup was good but we need to keep going. We can’t let there be a hangover from Sunday. We need to in against St Johnstone on Saturday, get a result and kick on in the league. If we get a result we can go into the international break in a great place.”