Black accuses referee of 'copping out'

However, Black believed Thomson, who cautioned five players in the match, should have dismissed his opponent.

"Scott Brown's challenge at the end was naughty but I'll take it,'' said Black. He said that if the referee ''was a bit of a man and it was earlier on in the game then he [Brown] would have walked up the tunnel."

But he added: ''But it was the end of the game and I felt he bottled it. It was a cop out. I know 100% if that was myself then I'd have walked up the tunnel - and people would have lapped it up."

Black emphasised he had no personal issues with the Celtic captain.

"I shook his hand at the end and congratulated him. I know him off the park and he's a good lad. I enjoyed going up against him,'' he said. "He's a good player, an international player, and we both competed well. I look forward to maybe more of these battles.

"You want to compete at the top level and this is where we're trying to get to. As soon as we get there and we can come enjoy more games like this and it can be great."

Black, though, was disappointed with the way Rangers slipped to a 2-0 defeat yesterday, believing his side conceded too easily the goals scored by Leigh Griffiths and Kris Commons.

He said: "I don't think the gulf between the sides was as big as many people said. We gifted two crap goals and if we had not conceded them in the manner we did then it could have been a very different story.

"We don't fear anyone. You've got to give Celtic credit for the win and we've got to respect them but we certainly competed and it was down to mistakes in the first half - free headers and slack defending - that cost us. It's frustrating to lose two sloppy goals. They didn't really cut us open at all, it's not like we were beaten by real quality play."

He said of the Celtic performance: "They defended well and we let ourselves down in the last third. If we'd had a bit better quality with our deliveries then it could have been different. We got in and around the box but couldn't find that final ball or cutting edge. "

Steve Simonsen, the Rangers goalkeeper, faces a Scottish Football Association judicial panel on February 12 over charges that he bet on 55 matches but he said last night the case had not affected his performance.

He said: "I've been fine. I've had issues but I can't and I won't discuss them [the charges] right now. We'll see what happens in a couple of weeks. I've had plenty to concentrate on to keep my mind off things. I'll continue to do that until I'm hauled up in front of the boys here in a couple of weeks."

He said the charges had bot affected his build-up to the semi-final.

"It hasn't been hard to prepare, these are the types of games every player wants to be involved in. It's been good having this game on the horizon, you can get away from anything else that's going on and get your teeth into it. In terms of that I'm delighted to have been involved in a game like this but obviously disappointed with the result," he said.

Rangers faced early pressure in the match but Simonsen expected this.

" We said beforehand we'd need to keep it tight for as long as we could, we knew Celtic would come out of the traps really quick having watched many DVDs of them over the last seven days or so," he said. "They certainly didn't disappoint in that respect. They closed us down quickly and we found it hard to get out."

He added: "The worst part of it was that we found ourselves a couple of goals down after half an hour. You've a mountain to climb in any game if you give the opposition two goals. We were still in the game if we'd got a goal but we were disappointed we couldn't really create anything and couldn't really trouble them much. We had our moments but overall it was a disappointing afternoon."

The 35-year-old Englishman touched the shot from Commons that flew into the net for the second but said: "You can never be ready for anything like that. It fell nicely for him and he's hit a good strike, so fair play to him."