By John Greechan

Copyright scotsman

Hibs boss David Gray admits he’s frustrated by the “inconsistency” over the handball rule that saw his team denied a dream opener at Ibrox. But he’s got no complaint with Martin Boyle’s goal being chalked off in a 2-0 Premier Sports Cup quarter-final loss to Rangers. Disappointed to lose two quick-fire goals just before half-time, and naming the timing of concessions as a recurring problem this season, Gray had no complaints about the result. He also said being disappointed not to win at Ibrox in a cup quarter-final demonstrates just how far his team have come in the past year. Boyle looked to have opened the scoring when he raced onto a Dylan Levitt ball over the top and beat Jack Butland with a low shot just 18 minutes into this evening’s live televised tie, which had been preceded by protests from Rangers fans still agitating for the removal of manager Russell Martin. But referee Nick Walsh ruled the goal out after a VAR review showed that the ball had hit Boyle’s left hand as he ran through. Asked if he had any complaint about the decisions, a diplomatic Gray said: “No, I think I’m frustrated, but I’m only frustrated because of inconsistency. I’m not frustrated because of the decision; I think it’s the right decision, because of what we were told, that if a ball hits your hand, and you gain an advantage for that by scoring a goal, that it wouldn’t be given. “You can see that it does hit Boyle on the hand, and it’s completely accidental, I don’t think he benefits really from it. He was running and it hit his hand. “So for them to cut it off is the right decision because of what we were told it was going to be. My biggest issue is it’s the same as what happened with us with penalty decisions in games. So it’s probably just the inconsistency which is the word that’s been frustratingly used a lot of late.” Gray had spent a lot of the build-up to this game playing down the crisis talk surrounding Rangers, who had been turned over 2-0 at home by Hearts in the league just a week earlier. Asked if he was disappointed that his team hadn’t been able to capitalise on the unease surrounding the Ibrox side, he pointed to the obvious strengths in Martin’s team. “My message to the players all week was to try as best as you can to ignore the noise, because all we can control is what we do,” he said, adding: “I think going into the game I understood why people would say that, because of the result here last weekend with Hearts and everything else. “But that game could have been very different when you look at decisions in the game. So Rangers haven’t got bad players; they’ve got a manager who’s been in the Premier League. “It’s a big club and coming along here is a real tough place to come and win games of football. I think history tells you that, especially for us. “So we had to be at our very best, regardless of the situation; them not being at their best, they’re still good players, they’ve still got a way of playing which is difficult. You’ve seen that today, they’re very good in rotations and the way they move the ball, so it was always going to be a tough test. “The disappointment side to it, and it probably also though shows how far we’ve come as a group, that we are really disappointed that we’ve not got through to the next round of the cup coming to a place like this That shows you measurably how far we’ve come. But I’m also quick to remind them that there is still a lot of improvement to come from us as a group. “I think I said before the game that we had to be at our very best to win the game, to be able to go through, to give ourselves the best chance to go through, to be at our best – and unfortunately we weren’t today. Not through a lack of effort, not through anything like that. “And I think even when you look at how the game started, I thought we were good in the game, I thought we were quite comfortable, restricted Rangers to very few opportunities from that point of view. And I thought we probably carried the biggest threat. “But to find ourselves 2-0 down with how the first half went was really tough to take. And probably the manner of the goals makes it even harder, I think.” Singling out the Nico Raskin header for the opener as a clear and present danger that had been flagged up to his players during preparations for this game, Gray said: “The first goal being a set piece, something that’s an identical goal that we lost last season, Nico Raskin at the front post. We showed them that, they’re aware of that, which isn’t good enough, especially just before half-time. “And then from there it’s big moments in the game, because then we have a big chance to score at the other end, we miss. And then again obviously lose the goal just before half-time, which is something we’ve done too many times this season already. “The timing of the goals that we’re conceding is something that is putting us really on the back foot. And it definitely changed how the game was going to be in the second half. “Then in the second half I thought we huffed and puffed without really doing enough to get back into the game, didn’t test Jack Butland enough to put them under real pressure. So I think all in all, I can’t have too many complaints, I think the better team went through on the night.”