Rangers 2 - 2 Hearts

Csaba Laszlo loves a simile. The havering Hearts manager likened Saturday's rousing comeback to a chicken pecking a malevolent snake into submission and, even more bizarrely, a Trabant outmanoeuvring a BMW Z4. Walter Smith was too weary to indulge his audience with such random repartee. Rangers, he said sombrely and with the first hints of resignation, were a soft touch.

He did not expand on whether such fragility was the result of an extensive and unavoidable defensive reshuffle but, given the damning recent evidence - of one point from six at home and a flimsy cup final defeat - he didn't have to. The personnel may change but the personality traits of his team persist. Rangers are chronically unreliable, technically deficient and, worst of all, mentally weak.

An increasingly exasperated Rangers manager saved his most pertinent point for last. After Alex McLeish had his say on the fabled "Rangers principles" of entertainment that governed his tactics, even in adversity, Smith lobbed a pointed grenade at those who have harped on about his conservative streak.

"As a manager over a period of time here, I made us difficult to beat and everybody said that was the wrong thing to do," he said. "If they are all sitting here this afternoon, they'll see that might be the right thing to do."

The irony of this latest, and costliest, spillage was that Hearts ultimately profited from the kind of tactics Smith had sworn by. He now faces a major decision, perhaps the last throw of the dice in his Rangers career. Does he persist with the risky strategy of being relatively adventurous, knowing his team are not suitably equipped, or revert to the 4-1-4-1 that will invite scorn and ridicule but offer his best chance of squeezing out a championship?

Kyle Lafferty will be missing for up to three weeks with a severely bruised ankle. It is as good a reason as any to reintroduce Kenny Miller, a forlorn figure on the bench on Saturday, as the lone striker. But what of Kris Boyd? He was abject on Saturday, well off the pace, wasteful in possession and when the game turned in Hearts' favour, became a passenger Rangers could not afford. He has scored once in his last eight outings and is exhausting the patience of the fans and manager.

Smith, in the eyes of a disgruntled following, can do no right. He is damned if he does play defensively and, as was proved again on Saturday, damned if he does not. He played 4-4-2 as an act of appeasement, watched his team blow a two-goal lead and headed down the tunnel with howls of discontent ringing in his ears. With Madjid Bougherra proving as brittle as bone china, David Weir suspended and Kirk Broadfoot out with a calf injury, he would have been within his rights to batten down the hatches. With a deficit to claw back, he opted to be adventurous. He did not fail, his players failed him. Again.

Smith was positively eccentric: partnering Lafferty and Boyd for the first time together, recalling DaMarcus Beasley, the American Idle, and doing away with a holding midfielder. Rangers were two up and cruising by the interval. Lafferty drilled the hosts into an early lead, after a slack pass from David Obua, Barry Ferguson finished his most inventive 45 minutes of the season with a rasping finish, and Hearts had not deigned to cross the halfway line.

Then, with no warning, they decided to take part. Laszlo lacerated his team at the interval, ripped up his framework and watched Calum Elliot, of all people, ransack a rum Rangers defence.

Hearts deserved a point for the sheer bravery of the second half comeback. "The first half was very poor but the second half was very sexy," said Laszlo. That in itself was a result.

Lee McCulloch and Christian Dailly, having spent the first half shooing Christian Nade away like a placid labrador, were then presented with a new and more threatening proposition. Elliot, whom Laszlo himself feared was not of SPL standard, began running at a sluggish central partnership with cruel intentions. He produced the first save from Allan McGregor after 63 minutes, a moment that had Rangers reeling and revitalised the visitors.

Within four minutes, they had completed an audacious recovery. Christos Karipidis capitalised on typically fragile defending from set-pieces to head past McGregor and, as Ibrox braced itself, Ruben Palazuelos exploited the same weakness. Obua's deep delivery was headed back across goal by Elliot, with not a hint of resistance from Steven Whittaker, and Palazuelos had the freedom of the 18-yard box to spear a left-foot shot past McGregor.

It might have been even worse for Rangers had McGregor not strained every sinew to shovel Elliot's curling effort away from his far post.

Taken from the Herald