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Disappointing to lose in that manner but given I feared a bit of a doing I'm pretty content with the display. The injury to Sutherland is frustrating particularly as he had looked pretty handy on the right side before he went off. His cross for Mackay was wonderful and it's a shame Gordon pulled off an incredible save to keep the scores level. Whilst Mackay looked pretty good going forward he didn't offer much protection for Harper who was run ragged for large parts of the game. A steep learning curve for Harper but I think once he gets up to speed he'll be fine. Our defence seemed to be Hearts most creative attacking threat for the first half with a number of errors almost gifting goals for the Jambos. Duffy looked okay considering he'd just joined up with the team and Deas looked pretty useful as well. Mckay was poor however. Some really poor passes out of defence led to us being put under pressure and I can't imagine he's going to be battling for a starting CB slot. Second half was mostly Hearts until late on. We didn't seem to be as settled as we had been for parts of the first half and the defence looked increasingly creaky particularly when Allardice went to RB where, whilst he did okay, I felt he was more effecient in the middle alongside Welsh (who seemed very sluggish). Poor decision to come for the ball by Ridgers prior to the penalty award. Don't think he really had a chance to get the ball over a couple of ICT and Hearts players. Feel the award against Harper is very harsh. He's not got his hand / arm above his shoulder and he's not making his body unnaturally bigger with the position of his hands / arms. Criminal miss by Toddy late on after a fine run and cross from Storey who played well in flashes but the second half was disappointing overall. Still though, just losing by a single goal against the team that is expected to romp the league isn't horrendous. Robbo has said that these games are being used for fitness so provided we don't disgrace ourselves in any of these matches I'm not bothered if we go out.

I think there is a lot of justified positivity. Our players have been idle, at least from a footballing point of view, for months and our thin squad was ravaged by injury. Yet, that was so very much more encouraging than our last visit to Tynecastle in this competition when all we had to do to progress was avoid losing by four or more goals and failed miserably to do that. On this occasion we only lost very narrowly due to a highly dubious penalty and a match rusty striker's lack of finishing ability. We are rightly treating these games as very largely 'pre season' but we have a realistic hope of qualifying for the knockout stages as one of the best runners up and some real confidence in our ability to compete with, far and away, the best resourced team in the division once we are back up to something approaching full strength. A credit to all at the club for getting us so ready for the season ahead in the most challenging of circumstances.

You’re quite right Robert. I happened to open up and read Caley 100 and started to type. This keyboard warrior is off to bed. Apologies!

But the old boys network don't want the chance of other clubs coming up into the SPFL it was always like that and always will be!

The fact that Brora and Kelty have done pretty well against Premiership opposition is proof enough that rejecting reconstruction was a massive mistake

I seen that and was supporting Montrose for the first time ever

I see Montrose have given County a scare tonight coming from 3 down to draw 3-3 before County scraped a penalty win. Reflecting on last night, it makes our performance all the more creditable given the lack of game time and level of injuries. Any word on how serious Sutherland’s injury is?

That hampers our chances in tomorrow night’s play off with Israel. Christie has been the mainstay of the team in the last few games.

Saw most of the second half : as others have said an encouraging performance given Hearts infinitely greater resources and the penalty was very very soft. Lots of refs (especially in Scotland) seem to lack basic common sense in decision making. Didn' t create very much up front but the chance late on should have been taken

Tom Walsh scored in Ayr's 5-2 win over Albion Rovers

I thought Welsh was a welcome calming presence in the middle of the pitch offering himself to take the ball off Deas and Mckay from defence but at times he didn't look sharp and had the ball nipped off him by Hearts. Good point about Keatings. Whilst I though Allardice did well his set pieces weren't that good with Keatings offering a marked improvement with his corners and free kicks.

I thought Ridgers, Deas, Allardice, Welsh, McGregor, Sutherland and Storey played well. Daniel MacKay was OK, as noted by RiG he had a tough assignment on the left where Hearts were strongest. Harper had a really tough game against Ginelly, it'll be a learning experience for him and I thought Duffy was OK, considering he's newly signed. Brad Mackay was poor though and Todorov should have hit the target with the chance he had. I thought we looked more threatening when Keatings came on as well.

I made a typo and got sent a better book - "**** stories and Mammories".

Robbo always surrenders to the Jam Tarts.

Encouraging performance from a very young team showed a lot of energy and never gave up the downside for me was their distribution to often the forward pass never found the intended target and was picked up by a Hearts player. The Penalty was never a penalty the speed of the ball from a short distance and the fact that our players arm was across his front meant he was a narrow as he could no part of his arm / hand was away from his body. The four Pundits working for Premier TV all stated no way was it a Penalty and even said that the referee was guessing as he could not see it , and the linesman who was looking right at it should have. John Robertson in his interview said the same never a penalty and ref was guessing. Neilson of course says if it hits your hand its a penalty - I think he would have been of a different opinion had it been against his player. Hearts of course deserved to win but a lot of Plus points for Caley. So the ref robbed of at least 1 point and maybe 2 if we won the Penalty shoot out

Very decent performance in the circumstances. Much to be encouraged about. The downside is the way that football and footballers are being treated by the powers that be. The ruling that despite all the close physical contact during the game you can't have a much needed, socially distanced shower after the game is absolutely outrageous.

You on the same thread? Read the posts since full time. All very supportive!

Great effort by an understrength team, a moral victory and an encouraging performance unlucky lads

Has it started.... missed that.