Boyd was the player hooked in favour of Cousin, who started the game on the bench because both he and fellow new recruit Steven Whittaker are still lacking match fitness.

Despite not being 100% fit, the former Lens striker quickly succeeded where Boyd has so far failed this season by finding the back of the net.

However, with a crucial Champions League qualifier against Red Star Belgrade looming next Tuesday, Smith has assured Boyd there will be plenty of opportunities to end the profligacy which has haunted him in recent games.

The Rangers boss said: "Both Daniel and Steven Whittaker are still well short of match practice but it's always easier for forwards in that situation to go on and show what they can do and thankfully he got us a goal.

"We are pleased with the effort that everybody is putting in. Kris Boyd has scored a terrific number of goals for us over the last couple of seasons.

"He's going through one of those spells that strikers go through when the goals don't come - but the goals will come for him.

"There will be plenty of opportunity for that to happen in the coming weeks."

Barry Ferguson, who netted a double in last week's 3-0 win at Inverness, came to the rescue of Rangers once again today.

Just when Saints were beginning to dare to hope they could emerge from Ibrox with a point, the Gers skipper broke the deadlock with 52 minutes gone before Cousin sealed the win in the 79th minute.

Smith paid tribute to his captain, adding: "It was a good first goal and it was going to take something like that to open the game up.

"It was a good touch by Lee McCulloch to let Barry through and a good finish. It was a really good move and a terrific goal."

Meanwhile, Smith was keen to play down Brahim Hemdani's exclusion from the squad today, insisting there was nothing to be read into his absence after the midfielder was linked with a move to Derby this week.

"Because of the under-21 ruling, we have one or two situations," he said. "He's a player I felt was one of our better players in midweek [against FK Zeta] and he will come back into our team on Tuesday and play.

"He's played really well for us since the start of the season but we've got Kevin Thomson and Barry and we wanted to see how we would do there."

Saints boss Gus MacPherson urged his players to keep their morale up ahead of next week's visit of Inverness Caledonian Thistle and revealed they will be boosted by the availability of new signing Franco Miranda.

"The pleasing thing for me is that we came here and we were brave and positive when we had the ball," he said.

"We have to take belief from that performance and take it into next week's game against Inverness.

"We've now got international clearance for the Argentinian lad, Franco Miranda, that came in late yesterday afternoon so he will play in the reserve game on Tuesday and will then come into contention for the squad all being well."