RiG

Instead of worrying about how many tickets we have told or Falkirk have sold how about drumming up some additional sales for ICT by getting family or friends to go along? Try and get as many folk involved as possible.

I have been to only 5 games at TCS this season, but have managed 14 away games? Does that mean I am a glory hunter? Yes. I hope you return your tickets right away.

Joe - you could always volunteer to lend a hand? I'm sure the folk in the club shop would appreciate it.

I take it this is the pre match thread? So little chat about our games these days. There's not been a lot between the sides in the two games I've seen this season. A 2 - 1 win up in Inverness earlier this season was cancelled out by a Saints victory just before Christmas thanks to some outrageous cheating by Brian Graham. We also won 2 - 0 in Inverness in January but I wasn't there so can't comment much on that. Certainly agree with the earlier comment(s) about the Home sides tending to emerge as the winner in these games. Draper is still out suspended for us and Brill is of course still injured. Despite losing against Aberdeen last week we performed well aside from our poor finishing which costs us at least a point. I suspect Hughes will stick with much the same side as last week although perhaps Ross might make way for Doran who impressed in his brief cameo. I reckon we'll line up as follows: Esson Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Tansey Williams Watkins Christie Ross (or Doran) Ofere Recently, Watkins has often pushed up alongside Ofere with Christie drifting out to the right and Ross tucking into the middle with Shinnie going up and down the left. This stifled Logan completely last weekend who seldom got beyond the halfway line and helped create a number of good chances for us which we simply didn't take. Hopefully we can be more clinical this week. No reason why we couldn't win it but the home teams, as mentioned already, tend to emerge victorious in these recent match ups so with that in mind I'm going for Saints 2 - 1 ICT.

I'm in. Do they have a jukebox?

Nothing at all about Laurence being boring! I can't wait until I'm (much) older. I plan to sit in shopping centres tripping people up with my walking stick. Anyway, I agree with what he (Laurence) says about the 49ers. Tomsula has been promoted to Head Coach as the 49ers try to seek success from within the organisation. I just don't see it. Nothing to do with Tomsula but more the players they have. Patrick Willis retiring was the big shock this season and veteran DT Justin Smith may also be retiring. Gore has left so the RB slot is going over to Reggie Bush. Interesting pick but I don't see him replicating his previous form. Getting Torrey Smith in is a decent enough deal but the secondary is weak along with much of the defensive side of the team. I would imagine a lot of the picks in the draft will be on the defensive side of the team with some offsensive picks for the future. Hopefully a drama free summer unlike last year.

A Laurence post I was interested to read! Looking forward to the draft tonight although there is no way I am staying up for it. Plenty of good build up programmes on Sky throughout the day as well. No first round picks for the Seahawks after the incredible Jimmy Graham trade so New Orleans get two as they look to overhaul their side. As a 49ers 'fan' I'm pretty concerend about the upcoming season. A lot of excellent players over the last 3 years have gone and the new wave of talent doesn't appear to be delivering. The defence is significantly weaker and the offence isn't much better. I have real doubts over Kaepernick and his ability to read the game. Seldom spies an open receiver. 49ers will do well to achieve anything like .500 next season.

Yer maw's house lol

I'm not a massive fan of crowd wanking but the home crowd was pretty poor in terms of turnout. I thought it looked around 4,500. A far cry from the 7,000 + turnouts we used to get v Aberdeen. Shame really as it's those who aren't there who are generally missing out.

Massively disappointing result. Felt like a bit of a smash and grab by Aberdeen to be honest who looked poor for much of the match until we shot ourselves in the foot by conceding two shoddy goals again from set plays (something that needs to be sorted out). After they went ahead Aberdeen comfortably saw out the rest of the match. It may be clichéd by the sign of a good is when they are playing poorly but still winning and that appears to be true for Aberdeen today. We started brightly enough. Some of our passing play in and around the Aberdeen area was fantastic. Clever and intricate one touch passing which carved open the Dons defence on a few occasions. Watkins and Ross both found themselves one on one with the keeper only a few yards out but each time they were denied by superb stops by Brown in the Aberdeen goal. Watkins had another good chance before half time when he scurried in behind the Aberdeen defence but blazed his effort well over. Whilst the Aberdeen defence wasn't looking to clever the Dons attack, whilst quiet on the whole, still looked threatening on occasions. A clever lobbed ball by Hayes found Rooney in some space but, under pressure, he dragged his shot wide. Rooney then headed past the post from an Aberdeen corner as he ghosted in unmarked and fortunately ICT escaped on that occasion. ICT took the lead when Watkins was able to send a cross in from the left flank which Ofere headed towards goal. Scott Brown failed to hold onto the ball and fumbled it to Ofere who, whilst lying on the ground, hooked his foot round the ball to fire it into the net to give Inverness the lead. The equaliser for Aberdeen was an exceptionally poor goal to concede from an ICT point of view. A McGinn free kick on the Inverness right side was whipped across goal and it seemed to evade everyone in the box before ending up in the back of the net. No idea if it came off Raven as some are reporting regardless it was still a very disappointing goal to give away. Worse was to follow a few minutes later when Aberdeen took the lead. Esson had initially saved well from a Rooney effort but the ball fell to McGinn who netted the winner from a few yards out. I might be wrong but I think McGinn actually took the initial corner and he followed the ball in with no ICT player picking him up. Again, very poor defensively from ICT on a set piece. After that Aberdeen easily controlled the rest of the game and looked comfortable for the remainder. Definitely not their finest performance but it says something that they can play poorly and still emerge with the three points in a 2nd v 3rd battle. ICT showed some great attacking play at times but poor finishing let us down badly today along with our well known problems defending set plays. The subs by Hughes were odd. I thought Ross and Christie were playing well when they came off but perhaps they were struggling after last weekends exploits. Definitely feels like a point or three thrown away as we now move on to eight league games without a win a run of form that drastically needs to be reversed if we want to finish third this season. The Scottish Cup run is fantastic but we can't lose focus on what we are trying to achieve in the league. EDIT: There were two big(-ish) penalty shouts for handball in this game. The first was when an ICT player slid across goal to block a shot and, with his arm trailing along the surface behind him as he slid, blocked a shot / pass. Logan then looked like he may have moved his arm to control a bouncing ball in the box. Neither was given and the referee was, coincidentally after last weekends shenanigans, Crawford Allan

Some incredible paranoia on show here which rivals that of some Celtic fans.

Surprised but very happy that Meekings is free to play. I can only guess that the panel came to a conclusion along the lines of either the handball itself wasn't deliberate and therefore he didn't deliberately stop a goal scoring opportunity or that there was no clear goal scoring opportunity present. Unless the verdict and any supporting information is released we will likely never know.

Good point - Draper is out for two league matches from 25th April. Let's play him v Aberdeen then have him miss Dundee and Saint Johnstone.

A couple of days before the game and still no thread although that can be excused due to the developments in the 'Hand of Josh' incident from the Scottish Cup Semi Final. We face Aberdeen on Saturday and it would be good to see a few extra punters coming through the gates to cheer on the lads after their heroics last weekend. You tend not to want to change a winning side but I wonder if Hughes will try and rotate a couple of players where we have the ability to do so. Perhaps the likes of Doran and Ross will come into the starting XI but elsewhere we don't really have that ability to rotate. I'm expecting something along the lines of: Esson Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie Tansey Draper Watkins Ross Doran Ofere Three defeats against Aberdeen so far this season. Been a long time since we went an entire season without defeating the Dandies - something like 07/08 was the last time we failed to record a victory over them in one season.

Given that Shinniesta plays for Birmingham yes I do think you are over estimating his ability to get there to block any subsequent goal bound effort!

That's not what he's been charged with though. He's been charged with denial of a (clear) goalscoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball. The whole last man thing doesn't even exist in the laws of the game.

I was thinking that was the case as well, but here is the response from one of the Terrace Podcast guys... "I think that comes under the 'didn't see it' aspect. I think it extends to interpreted wrong." "that's why Jason Talbot was cited for Nicholson (kicked in head) challenge. Ref booked him at the time, but didn't said he didn't realise severity" Haven't you done enough?

What end was he in?

Yeah, comments like those may not be very helpful when defending Meekings!

The compliance officer could easily have gotten involved on Monday. For whatever reason they decided not to do so. Now, after Celtic send a letter seeking an understanding or whatever their whining was dressed up as, suddenly the compliance officer springs into action and Meekings is charged. Quelle surprise. Not that I'm cynical or anything...

Easy defence for Meekings - yes the ball hit his hand but his head was down, eyes not looking at the ball (possibly even closed) and no idea where the ball even is. Absolutely no way he could possibly be deliberately trying to block the ball which is what the SFA have prove.

The Compliance Officer will have a tough time proving that Meekings deliberately placed his arm in a position whereby he would block the ball. Looking at this picture I don't even think Meekings knows where the ball is. His eyes appear to be closed and he has no idea where the ball is or what's going on around him.

I think we all know who is to blame here - Ross P for raising this issue in the first place. Get him banned from CTO!