HIBERNIAN centre half Ryan Porteous last night claimed his challenge on Alfredo Morelos had been "a coming together" and insisted he was unconcerned by Rangers players refusing to shake his hand at full-time.

Porteous was yellow carded by referee Don Robertson in the first-half of the Premiership match at Easter Road following an off-the-ball foul on Morelos in the middle of the park.

Ibrox right back James Tavernier and several of his team mates declined to acknowledge the Scotland Under-21 internationalist at the end of a match which they drew 2-2.

Rangers manager Steven Gerrard revealed the defender had branded Tavernier a bad loser - and recalled how he had scythed down Borna Barisic in a match Hibs were losing 3-0 last season.

However, the 21-year-old denied that he had deserved to be red carded for the Morelos incident and brushed aside the visitors' reaction to him following the final whistle.

Asked if he thought he was going to be ordered off by the match official when Morelos went to ground clutching his face, Porteous said: "Nah, it was a coming together really, I don't think it was anything more than that."

Asked about the Rangers players refusing to shake his hand at the end of the 90 minutes, he said: "I’m not bothered about that. What happens on the pitch should probably just stay on the pitch."

Meanwhile, Porteous praised Hibs keeper Ofir Marciano for pulling off a double save from Scott Arfield in the second-half when the score was 2-2 and stressed the Israeli has been integral to the success the capital club have enjoyed this season.

“He is brilliant," he said. "I hope he keeps up that vein of form until the international break. He is an international-class goalie. We have seen it time and time again at this level. He has pulled us out of a few sticky situations.

"To have that behind you is always going to give you some confidence. He made a brilliant double save today and a couple of snap saves. I am really pleased for him.”

Porteous added: "I think you're always disappointed to lose two goals in the manner we did. It's not been like us this season, one at the back post when we've defended so well and then the second one I think we're too deep. We need to stay high and trust ourselves defensively.

"Obviously we are disappointed to lose two goals but a point, we threw away the lead, but to come back the way we did is a positive and we got a good point at the end of the day.

"It's good to get through the 90 minutes and put in a good performance, but it's disappointing to be conceding two goals. I don't think we should be conceding two goals to anybody at home.

"They were decent in forward areas today, but I don't think they posed us that much of a problem. They had a couple of chances, our keeper made some great saves, but I think we have to believe in ourselves a bit more going forward because we've got the quality up there. It showed, we put a couple of balls into the box and we're causing teams problems."

Porteous if confident that Hibs, who remain three points behind Rangers at the top of the Premiership table, can give defending champions Celtic a good game when they face them at Parkhead on Sunday.

“People have to remember that we are up there as well," he said. "I am not saying that we are going to challenge for this and that, but we are up there through merit right now through performances and good results, though keeping clean sheets and scoring goals.

"We said we were going to cause Rangers problems and I think we did. When we went 1-0 up we sat in and protected that. We should probably have had that belief to go and score another one or two. We are disappointed to conceded two goals at home, but we will take the point.”

“We know that Parkhead will be a different ball game. Celtic’s record there is fantastic. But we have got the players in forward areas to hurt them. Celtic do too. It will be a difficult task – probably a little bit more difficult based on the fact that it is at Parkhead. But we will go there with every bit of belief.”