Stewing Rangers red card fury clamped as Nick Montgomery urged to have a proper look at the rulebook

Nick Montgomery has been pointed to the rule book over his defence of Hibs star Nathan Moriah-Welsh following his red card against Rangers.

Referee Steven McLean dished out a straight red card to the 21-year-old after he flew into a tackle on John Lundstram - leaving the Rangers man in a heap on the ground and reducing the Easter Road outfit to nine men during their Scottish Cup encounter following an earlier sending off for Jonathan Obita. Goals from Lundstram and Fabio Silva would be enough to book the Light Blues spot in the Scottish Cup semi-final - but Montgomery was unhappy after the final whistle.

He insisted that his player should have been issued a yellow card after he did not make contact with the Ibrox star in the lunge - and questioned why the VAR team did not send whistler McLean to the monitor to review the incident. The boss also questioned the reaction of Lundstram to the flashpoint - but former Hibee Lovell insisted the match officials had got the call right.

Lovell told Sportscene: “Nick Montgomery was unhappy with it but he goes in with some amount of pace. It’s a lunge and he is never getting the ball there. He says there was limited contact on John Lundstram but that meets pretty much all the requirements for serious foul play. He is lunging, he is out of control and it’s two-footed. The only question you could have is does it endanger the safety of the opponent - I mean maybe because he doesn’t catch his feet but it doesn’t have to be all of the above just some of the above.

"I was in the stadium and there was a gasp from the people around me. It was worse than reckless, it was a dangerous challenge and people have got to remember referees are asked to stick to the laws of the game and I thought