However, better times were to follow signs with promotion to the English top-flight achieved at Grimsby in 1901, with Celtic coming in and leading to a Cup Final in 1902, albeit lost to Hibernian. But even then for most of the season it had been as second-choice, as it was to be for two more campaigns at Middlesbrough. In fact it was only in 1904, ten years in, that four seasons at Aberdeen brought him a consistent place and further recognition, in the form of a win in 1905 for The Dons in The Qualifying Cup, the "Scottish Cup" for lower league teams. In 1907 he even captained the team. 

However, in April 1908 it was speculated by some Dons supporters that he has deliberately allowed a very late goal in a Cup semi-final. It was  against Celtic, seems highly unlikely to have been true since he was not to blame for the build-up to the goal itself and had otherwise had been very successful in the game in keeping a clean-sheet. But at just thirty-four that was it. He stepped away, retired and, although he was briefly tempted back by Motherwell, a badly broken finger would in 1909 lower the curtain finally.  

It is thought that at this point Rab might have left for Australia. The evidence is thin but it is not impossible and he would, in any case, soon be back. McFarlane had been born in Greenock in 1874 the second son of a Cooper from Dumfries-shire, his mother from Glasgow. He, like his elder brother, Thomas, had been a Ships Plater, with the sibling remaining in the trade, in the town, marrying and having four children as Rab pursued his football and did none of the above. However, Thomas McFarlane was in 1911 at the age of just forty to die, at some point after which his younger sibling seems to have reappeared, perhaps literally from the other side of the World to take responsibility for the whole of his brother's family. Indeed in 1921, with he and his erstwhile sister-in-law, Jane, now both shopkeepers, he running a newsagents/confectioners, they and the nieces and nephew shared the same address, Thomas and Jane's previous home. And Rab and Jane would continue to do so until her death in 1939 at the age of sixty-nine, he remaining there until his passing at that same age in 1943.