STEVEN GERRARD praised captain James Tavernier for 'going to the well' despite his efforts proving in vain against St Johnstone.

The right-back made his return from a knee injury during the Premiership draw at McDiarmid Park last week as he got an hour under his belt before being replaced by Nathan Patterson.

But the youngster's Scottish FA ban for breaching Covid regulations resulted in Tavernier having to play all two hours of their quarter-final clash with the Saints on Sunday.

Tavernier scored a 116th minute goal that looked to have earned Rangers a last four berth but Chris Kane equalised for Callum Davidson's side in the final seconds.

Keeper Zander Clark then saved from Tavernier and Kemar Roofe in the shoot-out to end Rangers' ambitions of adding the Scottish Cup to their Premiership title this term.

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Gerrard was also without the suspended Calvin Bassey and Bongani Zungu for the Ibrox tie and he was proud of the effort that his captain put in following a lengthy injury lay-off.

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Gerrard said: "That’s credit to James in terms of his fitness and how he looks after himself.

"The reality is that we shouldn’t have three people missing tonight.

"So you pick the bones out of all kinds of things and I don’t want to use excuses, but James has had to go to the well tonight and credit to him.

"But he feels like I feel now which is obviously completely different to how we did four weeks ago."