Queens suffered their first league loss of the season on Saturday and sit fourth in the Championship – but Iain Russell believes all the play-off talk surrounding Palmerston is premature.

Russell hit the Doonhamers second goal in the 4-2 defeat to Rangers on the weekend but the 31-year-old insists all the attention is on a good start to the Championship campaign.

Speaking after the game, Russell said: “There’s no reason why we can’t get in the play-offs and that’s why it’s disappointing to lose today.

“We’ve got Falkirk, Hearts and Hibs coming up and we need to take as many points as we can but it’s quite early to take about the play-offs.

“It’s going to be harder with these teams in the league but we did it last year and we want to do it again.

“The bigger clubs will have bigger squads and we’re lacking a bit as we’ve got seven players out injured. Over the course of the season that might be an advantage Rangers, Hearts and Hibs have over the other teams but that’s why it’s important to start well.”

With Jim McIntyre pointing to David Templeton’s second half strike as the turning point during Saturday’s game, Russell also believes that tilted the match in the Ibrox side’s favour after a great first half showing by Queens.

He said: “We were confident after the first half performance that we go out and do the same in the second. I think the early goal in the second half rocked us a wee bit in the first half we more than matched them.

“Templeton’s goal was a great finish and you can see the lift it gave them and it deflated us. If we’d held them off for another 15 minutes in to the second half we could’ve maybe played like we did in the first half.

 “It put us on the back foot and I don’t think we recovered from that - we didn’t look like the same team and we weren’t creating any real chances.

“Coming to Ibrox is great but it’s just another league game and to lose it the way we did after the first half performance is disappointing.”

Queens now face two weeks off before travelling to Falkirk for the first time since the extra time play-off defeat in May.