The Good the Bad and Raith Rovers 

 

With both clubs recording their first win in 2022, this clash could go a long way to deciding who has the bottle for the battle. Saturday 3:00pm at Starks Park should reveal all as good takes on bad, or Inverness versus Raith Rovers, a club apparently with the morals of Michael Gardyne. Both clubs have underperformed over the last three months but surprisingly still find themselves in contention for a play-off spot, realistically fourth place.

MATCH/TICKET/STREAMING/BUS INFO

SUPPORTERS BUS 07462218717

Raith Rovers bus 19th March leaves Caley Club 10.30, stadium 10.45. Picking up in Aviemore and Pitlochry. £20 and £15 for under 16s. Book through Facebook or on 07462218717

Venue Head2Head

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	19	13	4	2	37	14	+23
Away	14	7	4	3	27	17	+10
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	33	20	8	5	64	31	+33

Yes, the stats are not faulty: Raith Rovers have not beaten Inverness for almost twenty one and a half years. Incredible run of results going back to October 28th 2000 when we went down 1-2 in Inverness. Back to August of 2000 for their last win at Starks park and here is Ian Broadfoot's match report from that game, a 4-1 win for Raith: Caley Thistle's bad run continued against a sharp Raith side. Jay Stein set up the opening goal in 10 minutes with a run down the left and a cut back which deflected to Ray McKinnon and he scored with a low drive. The visitors best first half effort came in 27 minutes when Van de Kamp spectacularly saved a Davide Xausa 25 yard shot. On 44 minutes a free kick was touched to Kenny Black and Les Fridge tipped his shot over the bar. Raith killed the game off in a four minute spell in the second half. In 50 minutes a low ball from the right was punched by Fridge into the path of Paul Tosh who hit it home. Four minutes later Alex Burns beat three men in the box before scoring at the second attempt. Iain Stewart clawed one back with a close range header in 59 minutes after a Xausa shot had been blocked by the keeper. This sparked a revival with good efforts from Xausa and lively substitute Barry Robson. All efforts produced no more goals and Raith made it 4-1 in 82 minutes. Alex Burns crossed from the right and found Gerry Creaney who scored with a low shot from 15 yards. 

Decent teams back then 

Raith: Van de Kamp; McCulloch, Opinel, Gaughn, Browne, Black, S Tosh, McKinnon, P Tosh, Burns, Stein

Inverness: Fridge; Tokely, Mann, Hastings, Golabek, Christie, Sheerin, Byers, McBain, Stewart, Xausa

Subs: Calder; Robson, Bagan, Bavidge, Wyness

Last 10 Competitive Meetings

1 - 1 (H)

0 - 0 (H)

1 - 1 (A)

1 - 0 (H)

1 - 0 (A)

0 - 0 (H)

2 - 0 (H)

3 - 3 (A)

4 - 1 (H)

2 - 1 (H)

Saturday 3:00pm kick offs

Arbroath v Ayr United

   Killie v Queens

Partick v Accies 

  Rovers v Caley J's

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts      DUNFERMLINE Ath v MORTON (Fri 7:45pm) 1. Kilmarnock 29 16 5 8 39 20 53 2. Arbroath 29 13 12 4 40 22 51 3. Partick Thistle 28 12 9 7 41 26 45 4. Inverness CT 29 11 10 8 38 27 43 5. Raith Rovers 29 10 12 7 35 34 42 6. Morton 29 8 10 11 32 39 34 7. Ayr United 29 8 8 13 30 43 32 8. Hamilton Ac. 29 7 11 11 31 45 32 9. Q.O.S. 29 6 8 15 29 42 26 10. Dunfermline 28 4 13 11 26 43 25

Last Time Out

Inverness broke their eleven game run without a win by beating title challengers Arbroath with a somewhat flattering but nonetheless welcome 3-0 win. An early goal by Man of the Match Shane Sutherland was followed soon after by a Reece McAlear strike following a neat move involving Shane and David Carson. We reverted to type after that and the ball was like a hot potato as it was battered skywards with great regularity. However we repelled the advances of Arbroath without too much hassle and Billy Mckay sneaked a third goal as we started to dominate with twenty minutes left.

Get in Reece as he finishes off a tidy move down the right...

Raith also ended a similar barren spell (first win in twelve) by beating Queen of the South 1-0 at Palmerston to remain only one point behind Inverness in fifth place. The only goal of the game came in the first half through Matej Poplatnik.

The honours are favouring Inverness this season in league games. Inverness edged the first one in the Highlands with a Roddy MacGregor special doing the damage, but the two subsequent meetings ended in draws. There was also a drawn Challenge Cup game at Starks Park which Raith eventually won on penalties. 

Latest Team News

Allardice and MacGregor out long term, but unless there are any new issues Dodds should have a relatively injury free squad. Cammy Mackay could well continue in goal as he has done well since getting his opportunity through Mark Ridgers downtime. Sam Pearson has been called up to the Welsh u21 squad for forthcoming games against Switzerland and Bulgaria. Read Here Unfortunately it rules him out after the Raith game and he is unavailable for the Dunfermline game on 26th March.

Raith 

 

Eric the Stats Raith round up.

In: Sam Stanton, midfielder (Dundalk); Jamie Gullan, forward (Hibernian)

Loan: Ben Williamson - midfielder (Rangers).

Sean Mackie - a left back on loan from Hibernian FC, originally joined Raith in 2015 from the Fife Elite Academy before moving to Hibs the next season, according to sources his last 2 years at Hibs has been blighted by injury.

And last but not least; In & Out;  the Hokey Cokey saga of David Goodwillie. Yes, the in-out, in-out, shake it all about transfer that rocked the club back onto it's heels and brought out some embarrassing grovelling apologies. He went back to Clyde (loan) and his career is on hold as a footballer I believe as he is not welcome there either.

 

Out:

Adam Masson - Centre back on loan to Thornton Hibs JFC

Blaise Riley Snow - Midfielder on loan to Alloa Athletic

Kieran Mitchell - the 18 year old is on loan to Bo'ness United

Luke Mahady - a centre forward loaned out to Burntisland Shipyard FC

Quinn Coulson - left wing player farmed out to Cowdenbeath

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Satan said:

That's not been our name for a long time.

Is that what they all think we are called?

If you read a few of the articles on the club's website, you'll find that it's what WE think we are called 

CTO report

 

35 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

Don’t usually criticise refs but I’ve observed Colin Steven since he started in the non league and he’s consistently hopeless.

I've always enjoyed the Raith commentators - no matter what they call us - although it wasn't the usual second man today.

One of them before the match said "The ref today is one of my favourites, Colin Steven.  And if you detected any sarcasm in that, it was purely intentional!". 

I had to spend about 15 minutes in the car trying to collect myself before I could drive back. What an utterly bonkers match.

Clear red card for Benedictus and if Broadfoot did have him by the throat, whilst I can understand his anger, it sounds like we were lucky to avoid a dismissal as well. I didn't even know Williamson had been sent off  I think I was trying to breathe normally again at that point.

We were a mess at the back for much of that game and I felt we gifted Raith their goals by not dealing with balls forward and MacKay not really covering himself in glory for the first and looked weak at the second as well. I guess Raith will feel the same about our goal with Thomson looking really weak on the high ball that led to the goal.

We were absolutely out of that game until the red card. Our tactics seemed to consist of someone trying to dink a ball over the top of the Raith defence and hope that Samuels or Mckay could latch onto it. It took about 8 unsuccessful attempts before the ICT support made clear their feelings that it wasn't working.

Looked like Chalmers first strike was deflected over Thomson but who cares. Limbs in the away end as we thought we grabbed a scarcely deserved point but even better was to follow as Chalmers hit a lovely low drive sweetly past Thomson. Incredible limbs and a charge down the McDermid stand to celebrate with the players. You love to see it!

A simply mind boggling afternoon which saw us grab a massive 3 points but it papered over the cracks of a largely poor performance in which we got the benefit of the doubt with some questionable refereeing decisions.

Even at this early stage  it's looking extremely likely that the Premiership side in the play offs will be St Johnstone.

I hope that, from the point of view of being as prepared as possible, one of the coaching team will take in a couple of their league matches just in case we prove good enough or lucky enough to make the play off final.

Having reflected on the goals conceded today, I can't help feeling that Cammy could have done better with both of them.

I appreciate that this view might not be popular as, prior to today, he has been very solid since he came into the team but, in my view, we should be going with Ridgers, asuuming he is fully fit, as the more experienced "keeper for the remaining games of the season.

Looking at the remaining fixtures, on paper we have the easiest run in, playing only one of the top 5 (Killie), and five of the bottom 5.

Killie play four of the top 5 ( us, Partick, Arbroath and Raith), and only 2 of the bottom 5.

Arbroath play three of the top 5 ( Raith, Partick and Killie) and three of the bottom 5.

Partick play  three of the top 5 ( Killie, Arbroath and Raith) and four of the bottom 5.

Raith play three of the top 5 (Arbroath, Partick and Killie) and three of the bottom 5.

I know that in this crazy league any team can beat anyone else (whether they are currently in the top 5, or bottom 5), but everything now is firmly in our own hands if we can maintain some consistency, so let's all get behind the team for the remaining games, to help them secure a good play-off position, and then, "who knows".

 

 

The never give up attitude after lots of hoofball was getting us nowhere gave us two great goals from Chalmers  and stole the game, just fantastic!  

We have now won our first two games this year but still a lot to do.  We havn't faired so well playing teams in the lower half of the league so this has to change with our run in starting next week at home against Dunfermline.  

 

Another indicator of how crazy this league is: we’ve struggled to score goals for most of this season but now find ourselves joint top scorers! The top 4 teams have all scored 41.

I would be interested to know what our points per game is when we wear the pink kit compared with other away kits in recent years.  It seems to me we should play in pink every week.

Well all I can say is, what a weekend :O.

I was worried when we went 1-0 and 2-1 down but credit must go to all involved, and that includes the management, for turning it around :).

 

Oh and to the poster on page 2, I'm glad I watched the Rugby because Italy deserved the win, it was like Wales just expected to turn up and win, sound familiar?

3 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

I would be interested to know what our points per game is when we wear the pink kit compared with other away kits in recent years.  It seems to me we should play in pink every week.

The pink kit is, by far, the best away kit we have ever had.

Certainly a far nicer kit than the current one.

 

1 hour ago, tm4tj said:

 

Don't you just love a film with a surprising twist in the tail.

Cammy could have done better with the first goal but to be fair it was a shot which moved from one side of him to the other quickly and these can catch even top keepers out.

Bewildered how some are blaming him for the second goal however and this is just deflecting criticism from the defence in not holding a line or dealing with nothing more than a simple lump forwards

What was missed by the commentators at their goalie’s injury was the push their defender gave our forward which resulted in the collision. Some of our players were claiming a penalty, and in many games it could have been given.

Watching it back, Chalmers steadied himself well before his two shots. I don’t see how MacKay can be blamed for the second goal, but I still think he could have kept the first one out.

A lucky three points, but we’ve beaten two of our rivals in a week which must have boosted the confidence of the squad.

Now we need to beat Dunfermline for the first time this season next week. I have former colleagues coming up from Fife to join me at the game so really need a win to avoid getting stick from them all evening after it!

Edited March 20, 20224 yr by Robert

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

We are now in with a shout of promotion via the play offs.

However, to have a realistic chance, we need to keep as many of our limited squad as possible available to play.

Yesterday our most experienced player was lucky not to be sent off for reacting to what was admittedly a reckless challenge on him and could easily have found himself suspended for a straight red.

I realise that it is sometimes difficult in the heat of things but, from now until the end of the season, discipline will be almost as important as commitment.

The best form of retaliation is to watch your opponent leave the pitch head bowed in defeat.

14 minutes ago, tm4tj said:

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

What a sweet, accurate strike!!

12 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

I would be interested to know what our points per game is when we wear the pink kit compared with other away kits in recent years.  It seems to me we should play in pink every week.

It’s funny you mention this as I thought the same. I bought a yellow strip for my 6s team as I thought it was easier to pick out players…could be nonsense that but we did win the league 4 times in a row. Maybe there is something in it! 

The players need to get into their heads that when playing Dunfermline, who are bottom, that they will be fighting for their survival in this league, so we need to get into the mindset that we are fighting for promotion through the playoffs. We have struggled against the bottom clubs this season, and this would be a good time to go for our third win on the bounce. We also need to get out of the habit of punting the ball aimlessly up the park. Surely the percentage of unsuccessful attacks or goals leading from this practice must show the coaching staff that it doesn't work. Start on the front foot, close the opposition down and pass the ball and shoot more often, it's not rocket science. 

4 minutes ago, Jaggernaut said:

The players need to get into their heads that when playing Dunfermline, who are bottom, that they will be fighting for their survival in this league, so we need to get into the mindset that we are fighting for promotion through the playoffs. We have struggled against the bottom clubs this season, and this would be a good time to go for our third win on the bounce. We also need to get out of the habit of punting the ball aimlessly up the park. Surely the percentage of unsuccessful attacks or goals leading from this practice must show the coaching staff that it doesn't work. Start on the front foot, close the opposition down and pass the ball and shoot more often, it's not rocket science. 

Absolutely agree. Our last two victories could count for very little if we can't beat the Pars, who are bottom of the league for a reason, for the first time this season.

We are better than them. As Jaggernaught says, we have to be as comitted in the pursuit of promotion as they will be in avoiding relegation.

The club’s report:

https://ictfc.com/match-report-raith-rovers-2-3-ictfc

I think that’s 3 visits to Raith in a row where the home side had a red card (or two).

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

I think that’s 3 visits to Raith in a row where the home side had a red card (or two).

Three red cards yesterday if you count the one given to John McGlynn. 

Edited March 20, 20224 yr by Robert