Sasa Papac came to the rescue with a late winner as Rangers defeated St Johnstone 2-1 and moved to the summit of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

The full-back picked the ideal time to net his first goal of the season when he grabbed the decider at McDiarmid Park after Kris Boyd had cancelled out Collin Samuel's opener.

The final result was a blow for a plucky Saints side who picked up their first SPL win last week and had looked set to claim what could have been their biggest scalp of the season.

There was mystery surrounding the Rangers team ahead of the game with Madjid Bougherra absent amid reports of being dropped after going AWOL while on international duty.

The defender - who missed the Old Firm derby with flu - helped Algeria to a win over Rwanda last weekend but was missing from training at Murray Park on Friday.

Pedro Mendes also failed to feature in the squad which made the trip to Perth, although Lee McCulloch, Kevin Thomson, Jerome Rothen and Kyle Lafferty were all drafted into the starting XI.

St Johnstone made three changes from the side which defeated Hamilton. Murray Davidson, Gavin Swankie and Samuel all started, while Liam Craig and Kenny Deuchar were dropped to the bench and Steven Milne missed out through injury.

Rangers found themselves trailing with 17 minutes gone when Samuel raced onto a superb ball from Davidson before bearing down on goal and doing well to keep his composure and slot under Allan McGregor.

But Rangers were back on level terms four minutes before the break when a Thomson shot was inadvertently blocked by Papac and broke for Boyd to rifle home the rebound from eight yards.

And Rangers claimed the decisive goal after 83 minutes but it came from an unusual source. Substitute Steven Naismith provided the pass for Papac in plenty of space and he had time to switch from his right to his preferred left foot before lashing into the back of the net.