The Canada midfielder had already scored twice against Motherwell when Defoe passed up an opportunity to score and handed Arfield his third goal.

"I can't believe Jermain passed it to be honest," midfielder Arfield said.

"If I wasn't on two goals, he wasn't passing to me, not a chance, but fair play to him - no-one in the stadium expected him to pass it."

Arfield, who played for Falkirk, Huddersfield Town and Burnley before joining Rangers last summer, joked that it had taken him until his 478th senior appearance to score a hat-trick.

"What took me so long?" the 30-year-old asked. "I've been thinking that myself. I very much enjoyed it.

"I've hit four doubles in my career and this is my first treble. My last hat-trick at any level was playing for Murieston Boys Club.

"I used to score them consistently back then, but none of you were watching in those days.

"I once scored six in a game, but I was decent back then. I don't know what has happened since."

Arfield thought that more adventurous tactics adopted by Motherwell manager Stephen Robinson had helped Rangers.

"Motherwell have drastically changed in comparison to how they played before, when they were more direct," he said.

"Now they've got good footballers in there, so we knew we could exploit them in the back end and thankfully the three chances came as a result of us pressing high and we put them away."