When big Jim headed Queen of the South back on level terms and completed a stirring fightback to wipe out a two-goal deficit, I genuinely believed my local club, a team I was first taken to see at the age of six, had a chance of inflicting a defeat on my former team, Rangers, that would have been beyond comprehension for a side that have suffered enormously in losing out on the UEFA Cup and the league these past two weeks.

Queens should have gone for the jugular after those two quick goals, strikes I thought they had it in them even though some colleagues in the BBC television studio were of the opinion Rangers would turn a 2-0 half-time lead into a three or four-goal win. Instead, Queens perhaps sat back and sought a breather and were punished with Kris Boyd's match-winning second. At that pivotal point, I felt maybe the legs of the Queens players gave out.

And for all that there has been plenty said about Rangers' crammed fixture list, it might have been a crucial handicap to Queens that they hadn't play for four weeks before the final. That was tough on them and though there will have been an almighty party in Dumfries last night and Queens undoubtedly did my home town proud, Gordon Chisholm will agonise that his team didn't win.

Chis was like a brother to me for so long, we lived out of each other's pockets for years in being a management team at Airdrie, Falkirk, Dundee United and Queens latterly, and I know he won't want to be patronised by anyone saying he should to take pride in his team's efforts.

I did, and couldn't help but be pleased for the nine players I signed that made the starting line-up. How far Chis has taken the team in his year in charge might be illustrated by the fact that when last season we welcomed Hibs to a Scottish Cup quarter-final at Palmerston, the town was buzzing over the club's first last-eight appearance in the competition for 30 years.

If there is anything that dulls the pain of defeat it is that I played under Walter Smith and with Ally McCoist and they are great lads, men I have real respect for, and a final defeat would have been a horrible loss for them to suffer. I think Ally can take great credit for the performance of Boyd.

His all-round game is definitely showing a significant improvement and he is a proper physical presence as well as being the most natural goalscorer we have produced in this country since the man now the Rangers assistant. His link-up play still needs attention, but he has that unteachable knack, and can become the complete forward for all occasions.

Queens, meanwhile, should be satisfied they posed serious questions of the UEFA Cup finalists just as so many people were beginning to ask themselves if it was merely a case of "how many?"