RiG

The highlight of this match day for me was being given a free ticket by Caley100 which was awfully good of him

Cost of travel makes up a massive chunk of my expenditure for going to games home and away. Fortunately most ICT games don't get moved for TV so you can normally pick up check advance tickets for the train or a cheap bus fare safe in the knowledge that you won't run the risk of the game being moved. But fixtures being moved or being revealed only a couple of weeks before they are due to be played means you obviously cannot plan any travel and if you do decide to go then you are having to pay a small fortune just to travel to the match.

Not having a go at you I always thought it was a weird phrase that papers use that's all Anyway, hope he stays but I suspect he is off. I was sure I had read he was wanting to head back to England?

How do you step up a bid to offer a contract to someone? Surely you just offer a contract?

How do you dominate in terms of space? At the end of the day we can play more passes than he opposition but we need to create chances to score goals yesterday and that needs working on because we barely created anything of note yesterday.

Unless I am mistaken we have a game today and there is no thread on the forum about it. Incredible! Aside from the Cup victory Partick have been our bogey team this season. They are missing a number of players though which can only benefit us. Any word on Brill returning? If he's not back I'd like to see us set up along the lines of: Esson Raven Warren Meekings Shinnie (Boo!) Draper Tansey Watkins Ross Williams Ofere Partick Thistle 2 v 5 Caley Thistle for me.

No public transport from Inverness that gets into Glasgow for that KO time. Even trains from Aberdeen don't start early enough to arrive with enough time to spare to make kick off.

ICTRoughi - Nice one cheers. You'd like to think that the SFA / Sky etc. will have a plan in place already regarding what game will be played when based on the winners of the Celtic v United game. A Sunday lunchtime kick off would be a bit of a scunner for us. Special train again?

It'll be Hampden. Personally I'd prefer a smaller but filled out ground but that's just me. When Falkirk played Hibs a few seasons back I think that game was on the Saturday and was it Hearts v Celtic on the Sunday? If we get Celtic it'll be a Sunday lunchtime kick off I reckon. Edit: When do United and Celtic replay their game?

Is this the same BBC that can't tell ICT and Saint Johnstone fans apart?

PumpFake - sorry my point about the home crowd was the constant berating of the players offering next to no encouragement. The actual numbers there were better than I expected. One other thing I noticed was the apparent lack of width in our play. Aside from Shinnie and Raven we barely used the flanks which seemed odd given the strength of Ofere in the air. Watkins and Williams played very narrowly throughout the match and seldom appeared on the wings.

Chuffed to get through but it wasn't a great performance from us. A good number of half chances from close range and some decent long range efforts but overall we were very wasteful. Watkins somehow missed an open goal from about a yard out. Raith created very little. Their best chance came in the first half when Stewart (I think) flashed a ball in and it evaded Esson and one Raith player before going past the post. The only goal came from a Tansey corner which Devine met at the back post after he stepped off his man and simply nodded the ball in off the post. Solid effort from the Raith fans in attendance. Maybe 300 of them. Poor home crowd. Whilst it wasn't a great performance from Inverness the incredible negativity from the stands was something else. You'd think we were fighting relegation this season the way people were talking.

I am totally against diving to get a player sent off. Unless it is against Ross County in which case I say GIRUY!

If it is not deliberate handball then why is it 'probably' a penalty? There was no other foul committed so there is no reason to give a penalty unless the referee has deemed that Dixon deliberately handled the ball. As soon as he has done that he has decided that Dixon has also denied a clear goalscoring opportunity and therefore has to send him off.

I wonder if the Ross County game will be on? I take it the bad weather has mainly been hitting Inverness?

Game off. https://twitter.com/RaithRovers_FC/status/574141636369870848

Offers of what? New contracts? Vouchers for Simpsons? We need to know!

Watkins close to signing a new deal?

Fully expect Mckay to pitch up at Aberdeen in the next 2 years.

Willie Collum in charge for this one.

I think the Killie defender ducks. The ball is moving around all over the place and perhaps just looks like it is deflected.

Yes.

I wondered if perhaps someone had clattered into the frame of the goal and that caused it to shake but obviously not. And yeah, it looked like someone just got a wee bit on the cross to adjust the flight of the ball. Helpful for us!

In the first half I thought we were excellent. Our passing was quick, crisp and positive. We carved Saint Mirren apart on numerous occasions and, as many have said, could have been out of site by half time. Watkins passed up a couple of good chances. One, similar to those against Partick the other week, where he burst in behind the defence but sent his effort wide. The other he tried to lob Ridgers who blocked his initial effort and then from the follow up Watkins skewed the ball wide. Meekings had a header come off the bar. Some folk said that it might have gone in but even from the normally non conclusive highlights it doesn't look like it's anywhere near going over. Draper also had a good chance as well but his effort was blocked by the backside of a Saint Mirren defender. Luckily we did find a way through and it was from great build up down the left and, more incredibly, from a throw in which we are normally dreadful at. Shinnie played a neat interchange with Christie (I think), receiving the ball back and headed goal wards before cutting the ball back to Tansey who was arriving at the edge of the box and he coolly passed the ball into the net. Great goal from an ICT perspective. As above we dominated the first half but seemed to lose our way in the second half somewhat. Similar to games against Ross County and Partick Thistle in recent weeks it looked like we might pay for not holding a bigger lead. Our passing seemed to become less adventurous and more focused on keeping the ball but minus the attacking intent we had seen in the first half. Saint Mirren looked a lot livelier and more resilient in the second half and we struggled for a time to break them down. Fortunately we did grab a second goal when Raven managed to break down the right and play in Christie who, after what looked like an amazing piece of skilful miscontrol, sent Ridgers the wrong way and doubled our lead. Saints struck back when a corner was met by Goodwin as he out muscled Warren and steered a header past Esson. After that we had our backs to the wall for most of the rest of the game and MccAusland passed up two great opportunities to draw Saint Mirren level. The first, again from a corner, found him free towards the back post but he couldn't quite bring the Buddies back on level terms. The second chance, perhaps the better of the two, came fro ma free kick which evaded everyone and found its way to MccAusland who seemed somewhat taken aback that it had gotten as far as him, and he couldn't adjust his body to get a header on target. A fine result which should have been more emphatic than the scoreline depicts but thankfully we got away with passing up some of those great chances. It will be interesting to see how we rectify the apparent easing off in games after a good start. Hughes seems to be aware of this (based on his post match interview) but we haven't seen any changes yet to stop this from happening. We dropped a vital two points against County because of it so hopefully it won't happen again.

Raith Rovers are looking into offering their fans subsidised travel to the game. Could be a cracking away support.