Rangers closed the gap with league leaders Celtic to just one point by defeating St Mirren 2-1 at Ibrox on Saturday with Kris Boyd scoring his 150th career goal.

With their Old Firm rivals not playing until Sunday Rangers knew they could put the pressure on with a win in their Scottish Premier League clash with the Buddies. They did so thanks to a selfless shift from Scottish striker Kenny Miller who set-up both Boyd and Steven Davis to score but couldn't get the goal his display merited, with a candidate for miss of the season amongst his many chances.

St Mirren are the only team to have defeated Rangers in the league this season but there didn't seem any chance of repeating that feat in a match where they barley registered a shot on target until Franco Miranda scored with ten minutes left on a rare forage forward.

Rangers manager Walter Smith said it was frustrating that his side didn't kill off the game early on. "I felt we started the game well and if we had taken our chances then the match would have been over after an hour," Smith said. "There have been a number of situations this season where we have had numerous opportunities in a game and have not managed to kill it off and this was another one."

St Mirren manager Gus MacPherson praised his players for not capitulating after losing two early goals. "We could see quite early on that Rangers were up for it," MacPherson said. "I had visions of it being a heavy score-line but credit to the players as they stuck to their task till the end."

Rangers took the lead after just four minutes when Boyd scored his tenth league goal of the season and the 150th of his career. The striker headed down a pass to Miller who laid it off for Boyd to unleash a fierce low drive from the edge of the box past the helpless Mark Howard.

St Mirren could have found themselves on level terms if John Potter had been on target with his 8th minute header from a corner.

Rangers doubled their lead in the 10th minute when Davis finished off a flowing passing movement involving Miller again. Kirk Broadfoot's cutback found Miller at the edge of the box and he played a perfectly weighted first-time pass into the path of Davis who sidefooted it into the bottom left-hand corner.

The Ibrox club continued to dominate and Miller was presented with a couple of chances to get his name on the scoresheet but the Scotland international couldn't get the ball in the net.

Rangers came out in the second-half determined to add to their tally and captain Barry Ferguson came close in the 50th minute when his curling shot from six yards was deflected wide. Miller then missed a spectacular chance to score in the 52nd minute. He beat Howard to a long ball and rounded the keeper outside the box but he then blazed the ball over the bar when it looked easier to score.

Boyd came close in the 64th minute when, after a good one-two with Davis, he drilled the ball at goal but Howard did well to turn it out for a corner. St Mirren scored completely against the run of play through Miranda in the 81st minute. The defender collected the ball on the left-hand side of the box and curled a shot round Allan McGregor.

Craig Dargo came close with a curling free-kick with three minutes remaining but McGregor beat it away to secure the points for Rangers. Aberdeen drew 2-2 with Hibernian at Pittodrie with goals from Darren Mackie and Zander Diamond for the Dons and Rob Jones and Steven Fletcher for Hibs.

Michael Higdon scored the only goal of the match as Falkirk defeated Motherwell 1-0.

Jamie Hammill and David Fernandez goals sealed a 2-0 win for Kilmarnock over Dundee United Bruno Aguiar's first-half goal secured a 1-0 win for Hearts over Inverness Caledonian Thistle.