Danny Rohl praised Rangers’ mentality to twice come from behind to beat Hearts 4-2 at Ibrox and move within two points of the William Hill Premiership leaders.
Marc Leonard scored for the Jambos in the 16th minute before substitute Michael Steinwender put through his own goal under pressure from Rangers striker Ryan Naderi three minutes later.
Claudio Braga restored Hearts’ lead with a header on the half-hour, only for Chermiti to level again in the 39th minute. The 21-year-old Portuguese striker headed in his second in the 57th minute then clinched his hat-trick with a last-minute strike.
Rangers were 13 points behind Hearts when Rohl took over from Russell Martin in October and now enter the final 11 fixtures on the tails of the Gorgie side, with Celtic three points behind their Old Firm rivals and having played a game fewer than the top two.
Rohl, whose side bounced back from a 1-1 draw at Motherwell in midweek, said: “Big respect to my group, I think we showed today how big is the personality, how big is the character.
“Let’s not speak until the end of the season about the mentality of this group, because we have a lot of mentality.
“We fully deserved over 90 minutes to win, we gave them two presents today.
“I cannot really remember that they had a more dangerous situation. We were in the game, we played even before the conceded goal with high intensity.
“Now it’s about recovery, enjoy the evening and then we go again.”
Rohl hailed the vociferous home fans for giving him the full Ibrox experience for the first time, having questioned their patience in the tricky first half of the recent 5-1 win over Kilmarnock.
The German coach added: “Yes, it was the first time since I’ve been here that Ibrox was like Ibrox.
“I felt what it means. I’m very positive. We want to have this atmosphere in the stadium.
“I can understand this sometimes, but sometimes it’s difficult when you need the extra pass to prepare something.
“Then it’s sometimes difficult for my players, especially when you play against a deep block and they wait for transition moments.
“Sometimes you need the extra pass. But let’s speak not about this. Let’s speak about how the atmosphere was after the game.
“Outstanding. I think they pushed us today in every situation. They deserved these three points.”
Boss Derek McInnes insists Hearts are “not too despondent” about the defeat and believes there will be “twists and turns” before the end of the season.
The former Rangers midfielder said: “We still feel, although we’ve lost a fight today, there’s still a war to win and we’re still well in it.
“For us to be top of the league at this stage of the season is testament to the efforts of the players.
“And I’ve seen enough today that there’s still a lot of fight and courage about our performance.
“We’ve now got some good games on paper coming up and it’s important that we try and maximise the games coming up.
“And hopefully, as I said, going into the post-split games, when we play Rangers and Celtic again, there’s still a fight to be won.”
