RANGERS striker Kris Boyd has urged Alex McLeish to hand him a starting jersey against Georgia this Saturday.

The Rangers striker is never without his critics, but his hat-trick against Aberdeen at Ibrox at the weekend - his 25th goal of the campaign - has put him in an ideal position to lead Scotland's forward line as McLeish prepares for his first competitive fixtures as national coach.

It was the former Rangers manager who took Boyd from Kilmarnock to Ibrox last January and the 23-year-old is hopeful that he remains held in the same esteem by McLeish.

"It helps if you have got on with a gaffer and they know what you can do, but I still think that it's up to me to show him that I'm good enough to be in there when it comes to naming the starting line-up," said Boyd.

"It's up to Alex, obviously, whether or not I start against Georgia, but I am definitely ready to go and hope that I'll be in there.

"I am looking forward to it already. We have set ourselves up nicely in the group and hopefully we can continue that.

"After a performance like the weekend, both team wise and from my own point of view where I got a hat-trick, it's special and it has definitely set me up for this week."

McLeish doesn't have too many attacking options this week with neither Kenny Miller, Shaun Maloney nor Craig Beattie in prolific form and Boyd, despite being left out of the starting line-up for Rangers' previous two games by Walter Smith, is indisputably our in-form forward.

A decent result against Georgia this week would put Scotland in a good position ahead of next week's trip to Bari, where they'll face Italy.

And although Boyd was part of the Rangers side which was the first Scottish side to win on Italian soil this season in the Uefa Cup, he knows this game will be an entirely different proposition.

"International football is different from club football but if we can get a result this Saturday then we can definitely go into the Italy game with great confidence to then get a result against them," he said.

"There's no reason why we should go there fearing anything."

The weekend result takes Rangers within touching distance of securing the second Champions League position, something that is vital for Smith's side after they lost out on it last season.

Boyd has admitted that the Uefa Cup doesn't have the same allure as Europe's premier competition, but he has warned Rangers that the same level of performance that was shown against Aberdeen has to be maintained in every game between now and the end of the season.

"It's going to be hard for our challengers, but it's not over yet," he said. "It's a decent gap, but there are still a few hard games for us to play.

"We need those types of performances that we got at the weekend in every game between now and the end of the season.

"Obviously we want to be back in the Champions League. It's where the best teams in Europe play and we feel that with a few extra faces we can get back there in the summer."