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Didn't look like that to me. As IHE says it was a 442 / 4411 for most of the game. Polworth spent most of the game tucking inside which brutally exposed Rooney on a number of occasions and led to Mckay getting dragged out of the middle to cover when he (Rooney) was taken apart. Left side was more impressive with Tremarco and Walsh getting a lot more joy especially in the first half with the latter sending over a number of good crosses and setting up the goal. When Walsh went off for Welsh Chalmers was moved to left midfield and Welsh slotted into the centre with Trafford. Austin and Oakley played as a two up front with Oakley often dropping slightly deeper to challenge for high balls. We got very lucky today. Despite a good start we regressed more and more as the game wore on. Falkirk really came to dominate things as the match wore on but more often than not they ran out of ideas as they got closer to our goal. Walsh, as mentioned above, started well down the left and he set up the opener with a ball across the box sent in from the left and Oakley found a bit of space to divert the ball back across goal and into the net. We should have killed the game off when Austin found himself with a free run on goal after a defensive mix up but he never looked like he would score and he was smothered by the onrushing Falkirk keeper. Falkirk thought they pulled level when a high free kick was headed beyond Ridgers but after a loooong delay, and with the players about to take the kick off, it was suddenly pulled back. I've no idea why the Falkirk goal was chopped off but I'm guessing it was a foul on one of Rooney, Donaldson or Mckay as they all ended up in a heap when the ball was floated in. The referee hadn't given anything but it seemed the linesman was the one who saw something wrong. Following on from that we resorted to brutal route one football with aimless hoofs up the park for Oakley and later White to try and chase. Bizarrely we even seemed to be targeting Mckay with these long balls rather than White and these high balls were easily mopped up by the defenders. The one occasion we did get the ball down and pass it around we looked good. Chalmers, Welsh and Trafford quickly played the ball around 3 or 4 home players who were left chasing shadows so it was disappointing that we seemed to lack the composure to do this more often though perhaps that was more to Falkirk closing us down a lot better in the second half than the first. Falkirk look exactly what we were like this time last season, a team clearly lacking cohesion due to so many new faces so we definitely got them at a good time. Whilst it's a very encouraging result I think we need to be cautious given how poor we were in the second half. Donaldson, Tremarco, Walsh and Oakley were probably my picks from today. Donaldson was excellent at the back although there were a couple of lapses on occasions. Tremarco and Walsh linked well down the left and the latter offered good defensive cover as well. Oakley was a handful up front but faded as the game went on.

Fantastic..nothing like an opening day win to raise hopes of great things for the season!

That's exactly the winning start to the season that we needed - well done guys.

I don't think anyone seriously believes that can tell Robbo how to do his job, but isn't a big part of the function of a forum to allow supporters to discuss tactics they'd like to see or that they think might work? It can't all be about discussing behind-the-scene politics or financial infrastructure or the state of the support and the club's relationship to it, even though these are important issues.

Mind you Hearts got an impressive win away today, perhaps indicative of a gap in class?

I think we all would have settled for that after last week's debacle. Well done boys.

Kant and Pumbaa ?

Crowd was around 4500. If only we could get gates like that on a regular basis, what a difference that would make to our finances. Great result though.

Yup I agree with that... Good to see hearts get that win today confirms what I thought last week... That we were beaten by a very strong and composed Premier League side. We didn't do a whole lot wrong before the 3rd went in

I take it all back anyway. Chalmers and Trafford are clearly the Kante and Pogba of the Championship.

An away win and a clean sheet against a team to probably have a bigger budget than us this season is an excellent way to start the league campaign. A similar result on day one last season would have seen us in the play offs. A lot of hard work lies ahead but to see us start this season in the manner we ended last is very encouraging.

FT 0-1, great 3 points to start the season ⚽️?

I can't find the match thread, but Oakley gives us a great start 0 - 1

Good preview Don, not much on the official site though.

Each to their own, but I'm with CaleyD on this one. It's always interesting to read other folks' thoughts but it is not something that I particularly want to think about beyond the occasional time when I maybe think a particular player is being used inappropriately. I'd rather discuss games after they have taken place than before, and I enjoy joining in the prediction games and having a little bit of mildly competitive fun just guessing on the outcome of the matches. On that subject, so far there are just 10 of us with predictions for the opening round of games on Gringo's great little Prediction League. It takes no time to do each week. It is more enjoyable the more folk are involved, so come on people, get yourselves signed up and your predictions in.

Boring **** - Not slow to give your opinions off the pitch so feckin beef up mun ?

It's got a bridge, and no bouncy castle, oh Inverness...