Right back James Tavernier has reflected on the Championship trophy win and also spoke of how he never dreamed of the potential of European football when joining Rangers over the summer.
The 24 year old has enjoyed a fantastic maiden season at Ibrox, playing his part in the successes so far this season and also helping himself to a record with 15 goals to his own name.
Speaking to the Official Site with the build up to the Scottish Cup final at Hampden against Hibernian, Tavernier admitted that lifting the Petrofac Training Cup and taking the title and promotion had been the aim when coming in, but the prospect of European football this soon into his time at the club didn’t even cross in his mind.
‘When I first came up here, our objective was to win the league. But getting to the final, and the way we got to the final, is a great credit to all the staff, and having the prize of Europe at the end is something I would never have thought about when I came up here. The gaffer has given me a platform to perform every week. Rangers are a massive club and I needed games, and with the ambition and the possibility to take the club back to where we needed to be, it didn`t have to be sold to me. We don`t have one bad egg in the team, and we are all close to each other. We have a laugh, but we all work hard on the training field and we want the best for each other. I bought into it straight away and it`s something that has turned out to be a great story so far.’
With a near three week break to the final when it cycles round, Tavernier was asked whether that had been a help or a hindrance with so long without a competitive match, but he’d been pleased with preparations so far, and it’s a final – players don’t need additional motivation.
‘You just have to say to yourself that you`ll be playing in the Scottish Cup Final, and those words should put you straight up there and get you motivated straight away. You`re playing at Hampden and the prize is massive, so I don`t think we`ll need any encouragement from anywhere else. All the boys are already raring to go and cannot wait for it. You want the game to come tomorrow, but it`s been good in the sense that it`s given everyone a chance to recover from the season and the associated knocks the boys have taken. It`s going to look from an outsider`s point of view like a good contest, but no matter who we had in the final, we were always going to concentrate on ourselves. That`s not going to change, and we`re going to be fresh and ready come Saturday.’
