Dan Casey insisted he did not set out to crock Rangers kid Ross McCausland.

But Ibrox skipper James Tavernier has accused the Motherwell match-winner of endangering his team-mate’s safety with Saturday’s ferocious challenge at Ibrox. It was a painful day for Gers in more ways than one as they fell to their first top-flight home defeat against the Steelmen in 27 years.

But Rangers boss Philippe Clement was left furious with the treatment meted out to McCausland, claiming the youngster – who is now a major doubt for Thursday’s Europa League clash against Benfica after hobbling out of the ground on crutches – had been “kicked off the pitch”. Casey – who later scored Well’s winner – escaped without even a booking after the incident was reviewed by VAR. Clement responded to the incident by demanding his players receive greater protection from referees. But Casey has now defended himself after a run-in with the Belgian’s back-room team.

The Irishman said: “One of the Rangers coaching staff said something to me after the game about it. I didn’t really listen or hear what they said, but I think it was something about what happened (with the tackle). But I only went in to win the ball. I never went in to hurt anyone. I’m not that type of person.

James Tavernier admits Rangers players ‘all feel responsible’ for Michael Beale’s sacking

“If you see it back, you can see I won the ball. I would never, ever try to hurt anybody. As a person, that’s not what I’m about. I only had eyes for the ball. I play hard and I go in hard, that’s just how I am.”

McCausland had to be replaced by Fabio Silva after limping off the pitch following Casey’s tackle. And his captain believes the challenge was reckless and should have been punished.

Tavernier said: “Obviously he’s won the ball, but it’s the velocity of the challenge, and then you see Ross obviously go straight down the tunnel and he’s on crutches. We were asking the ref…obviously he’s won the ball, but it’s the pace that he’s went in and he’s injured our player.

“So, I asked the question, and it’s the person in VAR who is looking at it. There was a lot of things on Saturday I felt could have been different.

“You look at it and it’s good old-fashioned football, you want to see challenges, but when it is endangering an opponent then it’s a different story. Yeah, he got the ball, but for Ross to walk straight down the tunnel and be in crutches, he’s obviously went in too hard and they [the officials] have not seen anything.”

Casey was at the heart of most of the major talking points during the 2-1 victory for Stuart Kettlewell’s impressive outfit. He headed the winner past Jack Butland with 15 minutes left – but only after he and Stephen O’Donnell had been involved in a challenge on Silva that lead to VAR awarding Gers a penalty.

Motherwell’s Dan Casey celebrates at full time

But the puzzled Well ace – whose side now sit just two points outside of the top six – admitted: “To be honest, I don’t even know what happened. I don’t think it was a penalty at all.

“We were laughing after the game saying: ‘What happened?’

“I’ve honestly no idea what he gave it for. You can’t even speak to the ref now or else you’ll get a yellow card.

“I just needed to bite my tongue and just keep going. We managed to score another goal and see it out, so it was good.

“That’s a really big win for us. It’s been a long time coming in terms of getting a result here at Ibrox. But it’s only three points. We’ve got a week off now, so we need to get ready for Aberdeen.

“We need to start looking up the table and hopefully push towards the top six. We’ve played Rangers and Celtic a few times now and been unlucky.

“We got the job done this time, which was really satisfying. We know what we can do and the levels we can reach.

“We’ve been upset with ourselves in a few games this season where we felt we should have taken more points. But need to take this into the Aberdeen game now. We’ve got a full week to get ourselves focused on that.”

GET MORE NEWS HERE