Rangers manager Walter Smith admits he was relieved to end a difficult week with a win - even if their victory over St Mirren was far less convincing than it should have been.
Kris Boyd provided a dream start with the opener after just 17 seconds and the Ibrox crowd would have been forgiven for hoping they were about to witness an onslaught.
Boyd did grab his second of the day - and his seventh of the season - after the interval but a barrage of goals failed to materialise and Saints ensured a nervous finale when Stephen O'Donnell pulled a goal back with two minutes to go.
Rangers managed to hold on for the win which allowed them to move to within a point of Clydesdale Bank Premier League leaders Celtic ahead of their visit to Falkirk.
And, in a week where Smith's men earned a draw against Unirea Urziceni in the Champions League and several players - Kevin Thomson, Steven Smith and Kyle Lafferty - were struck down by sickness bug, the Rangers boss was pleased just to get the points on the board.
He said: "When you go away for the European games and you have the Wednesday-Saturday games, you always have a problem, especially when we lost two or three players to a bug they picked up in Romania.
"So we were pleased to come back and win the game - that was an important factor for us today, although it was a little bit closer at the end than we would have wanted.
"I always think St Mirren are a difficult team to play against and there were periods of the game where they imposed themselves and we had to work hard against them. But we were delighted to win the game in the end."
