It’s quite laughable to see Kyle Lafferty axed from Northern Ireland’s squad for using a term Celtic fans use on themselves.

It is a sectarian term which we won’t repeat, because this is a (mostly) family site, but these are fans who have been ‘proudly’ using this term upon themselves, and have now cried foul because a player who supports Rangers took a private dig at them with the same language.

See, what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander, but not in this case we see.

We are in no way condoning the phrase Lafferty used, and we’re well aware he’s a high-maintenance boy who has had trouble follow him most of his career, but he’s also a genuinely decent sort, if a bit on the ‘daft as a brush’ side of life.

But equally it takes a major brass neck to proudly display a huge banner at Parkhead using this very term as an endearment of your own fans, then complain when a footballer uses it against you in the course of battle.

Now, what does this have to do with Rangers, we hear some of you cry? Well, he’s one of us, and he’s been a high-profile Rangers supporter and defender in the press for many years.

He knows he didn’t do himself justice in his second spell at the club, but he never stopped loving us. And we feel an affinity to him, so he’s very much one of us and we like to back our own up.

We can’t defend the language he used, but we can certainly point at the hypocrisy in Celtic fans having him reported when they use the same terminology themselves.

Brass neck indeed.