Caley Thistle welcome St Mirren to the Caledonian Stadium on Saturday in our first SPL fixture in two weeks following the international break. The Buddies come into the match on the back of a poor start to their campaign, losing three of their first four games only scoring a single goal in the process. Having drawn the short straw of a trip to Celtic Park on the opening day of the season Saints eventually succumbed to an extremely dubious Barry Robson penalty despite having matched Celtic in most areas. This incident was the catalyst for the main early season talking point - dodgy referees. St Mirren boss Gus McPherson was reported to have accused whistler Eddie Smith of 'winking' at him during the match and the fact that Smith travelled with the Celtic squad on a European trip after a previous howler against the Paisley side was also dragged up. Subsequent screenings showed that the penalty was indeed a mistake from Smith, who failed to overturn his red card for Buddie captain Will Haining.

After such a controversial start, St Mirren followed up with a nondescript goalless draw at home to Kilmarnock and a loss at Tynecastle that saw them reduced to ten men within the first half hour. Last time out they outplayed Aberdeen for much of their clash at Love Street but lost due to a Dons breakaway that took full advantage of several defensive blunders. In a happier night for the North Bank St Mirren went through to the last 16 of the League cup with a 7-0 thrashing of Dumbarton, featuring a hat-trick for former Dunfermline striker Billy Mehmet.

St Mirren are entering their third season in the SPL and have proved a solid addition to the top Scottish league. They were involved in a tough fight against relegation with Dunfermline in 2006/07 during which they had to rally late in the season to save their skins. Like all of the lower half SPL clubs they spent last season relaxing as the Gretna farce played out well below them. In preperation for this season they signed players from fellow bottom six sides Falkirk (Jack Ross) and us (Dennis Wyness) as well as bringing in Tom Brighton (ex of Clyde and Millwall) and Scott Cuthburt (on loan from Celtic). This supplemented a strike-force including Jim Hamilton (a famous benficiary of the Ross County Pension Scheme) and Craig Dargo, who took a contract with St Mirren over an extended deal at the Caledonian Stadium.

INVERNESS CT v ST. MIRREN

Tulloch Caledonian Stadium

Saturday 13th September, 3pm 

PAST MEETINGS

Caley Thistle and St Mirren have played each other 28 times, with 15 wins for Caley thistle, eight draws and five St Mirren wins. We went unbeaten in these games from 2001 until 2006, including a glorious spell which featured eight straight wins for Caley Thistle, 28 goals for and two Buddies managers sacked (Tom Hendrie and John Coughlin). John Robertson's opening salvo as Caley Thistle boss also came with a 4-1 win at Love Street in December 2003. Since the resumption of Paisley-Inverness hostilities in the SPL this has been a much more closely contested fixture with three wins for us, two for St Mirren and three draws. No meeting between ourselves and St Mirren in the SPL has been won by more than a single goal. It was also a dispiriting defeat at Love Street that lead Charlie Christie to throw in the towel as our manager. From a Caley Thistle perspective, the most memorable game between the two clubs is probably a 4-0 win in August 2002 which saw Tom Hendrie binned as manager, despite him offering the classic argument that his team 'deserved to draw the second half'. St Mirren fans will look back fondly on winning the first game of their SPL return 2-1 at our place on the 29th of July 2006.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Dennis Wyness, Craig Dargo and Billy Mehmet. Many ICT fans were outraged when club all-time leading goalscorer Wyness had a contract offer withdrawn towards the end of last season and he ended up signing a PCA with St Mirren. There he hooked up with another ex-Caley player Craig Dargo, who turned down a contract offer with us to link up with former Kilmarnock colleague Gus McPherson. Despite having been a leading SPL goalscorer in both his seasons for ICT Dargo has struggled at Love Street, first from injuries then with loss of form. As things stand Dargo has only managed a solitary league goal at his new club and that came against Gretna last season. Wyness has been used mainly as a sub so far this season but given his status at ICT it will be an interesting and strange experience to see him line up against us. It's a safe assumption that Wyness will receive a better reception than Dargo from our fans considering the Ronaldo-lite circus that ran back when Dargo left. Interestingly, despite Dargo having better SPL pedigree the main striker and goal threat for St Mirren over the past few seasons has been the much-maligned Billy Mehmet. Mehmet is often a figure of fun among opposition fans for his awkward appearance but he has developed into a canny target man and managed eight goals last season and four so far this term, including his sides only SPL goal. Mehmet will offer a challenge to Jamie Duff and Phil McGuire in the air and his link up play is underrated. From a Caley Thistle perspective our games against St Mirren are given an extra edge by one player - Ross Tokely. For those not versed in the history of the Saints fans vendetta, back in 1999 we lined up for our first league game against St Mirren. We lost 3-2 at Love Street to an SPL bound Saints team but the match is now only remembered for Rosscoe's first half red card for a late tackle on St Mirren left-back Chris Kerr. Kerr's knee was seriously damaged and he was out for over a year. He came back and played for St Mirren in the SPL before being released a few years later not having regained the form which saw him touted for moves to England and international honours. St Mirren fans recollections of the incident tend to portray Rosscoe as cynically and deliberately ending Kerr's career due to a seam of malevolent evil mined into his soul: Ross is about as popular with St Mirren fans as Barack Obama is with the Aryan Brotherhood. We can expect a barrage of abuse from Buddies in the away end, doubtlessly including tiresome chants regarding the tabloid make believe that Ross has been subject to. It will be interesting to see how he responds, especially after a commanding performance against Falkirk last week.

MY REALISTIC PREDICTION

This season we seem to have put together two fantastic away showings and two pretty poor run-outs at home. After the superb opening day effort against Aberdeen we tried to replicate the cautious 4-5-1 style against Hamilton but were caught out by a defensive slip and couldn't claw our way back into the game. The performance against Falkirk was much more encouraging - an attacking starting XI and inspired attacking substitutions won us the match. If we stick with the same line-up and approach the game in the same invigorated manner that we showed at Westfield we have a great chance of bagging our first home win of the season. Adam Rooney arrived with a lot of expectations from our fans and he was a handful against Falkirk, setting up Imrie's late winner with a battling header. One thing that will have disappointed him is that he missed a couple of clear chances. I can see the manager using this to motivate Rooney to go out and show what he can do in this match. Prediction: 2-0 win for Caley Thistle with Rooney and Cowie scoring.