davie

Aye, beastie, but grass is always greener if you put sh*te on it. Like Riordan.

Are you seriously saying that a player being ordered off in a game in circumstances that happen every week in every league is going to make you not buy a season ticket? With all due respect, your logic seems a bit odd. The ref sent him off for serious foul play - that tackle. Nothing else comes into it or is allowed to come into it. BTW, we've had more than two red cards a season every year in the SPL since 07-08. Not excusing Foran here, he didn't need to make that challenge, but a bit of perspective would be good.

Bloody ESPN. This will disrupt my normal friday night routine of meeting grumpy old men in No.27 for a few pints and retiring at a reasonable time with an ovaltine. Suppose I'll just have to have a couple after the game. Now, where's that Miami place the boy's always on about?

Got to be a first year. I've never met anyone who's been in uni more than a week worry about missing a lecture. You'll be there.

No mention of a previous yellow on BBC. I don't know if this one is really worth appealing but please get this into context. If, as IHE rigtly says, you take the aggression out Foran, you end up with half the player. Anyone remember what he was like when he was younger? Pussycat nowadays. As for OTJ, it's entirely different. Never been sent off or suspended before, he lashed out like a laddie genuinely concerned about another injury. Neither of these indicate a discipline problem at the club. Just a couple of episodes of daftness.

Noted Luke. I'll try not to say it next week!

Don. Erse licking and happy clapping. Now there's an image to hold on to

reckon the ref lost control of the game for two periods (one per half) For their pen, there were two players offside for the ball in, and king is adjuged to have held sutton back. He's miles off him. Foran's red was right. He missed the guy with his leading foot but caught him with the other, it was a naughty wee challenge and was never going to get less than a yellow. But all of that pales by comparison to the fight and spirit shown by thi side. Make no mistake, this is a game we would have lost last year. Brilliant.

Esson, Raven, G Shinnie, Warren, King, Draper, Foran, Doran, McKay, A Shinnie, Ross. 4-4-1-1 to start, shift to a 4-4-2 with Shinnie much closer to McKay if we are doing well after 50 mins. or so. Changes? Pepper could be a handful for a Hearts defence which has some young boys in it and Oswell could prove an unknown to them if brought on in plenty of time. I'd leave Meekings on the bench; he's young and Raven is a better attacking option. He's also the ideal option if the defence need reinforcing. There y'are, cards on the table.

Bait Red Snapper perhaps? All it needs is stale bread to hook davie Not biting. Enjoy yer holiday.

Callieanne, Hayes has been replaced by Connor Pepper, a youngster with potential and ability. In other words, exactly what Hayes was when he arrived here. Like for like. Tade was unproven at SPL level (some would say he still is) and replaced by Oswell. Again similar in terms of potential and hopefully with a bit more in the way of loyalty. On the other topic, it is your absolute right to stay away and not buy the "product" if you feel it's not for you. Where and what you spend your money on is your business. The only disagreement that I would have is that it is too early in the season (for me) to make a judgement and I think there are already signs that things might improve this year. I'm sorry that you feel castigated for expressing your opinion, and although I can't agree with IHE and Gringo Jnr's response I hope that you continue to look on and be persuaded to return. I for one in the Caley Jags Together camp would be happy to welcome you back.

What's the red card for? I certainly recognise that there are tirades from both sides of this argument, and there have been several posts that advocate attacking football even if it means going out of the league. Like you, I've never seen us being cavalier in the SPL but with all due respect that's not what I said, we have been playing the ball on the deck more (both sides did) and there was team spirit on show on saturday. I have a far more open mind than you might credit me for, and believe me I've been listening. I'll refrain from the yellow things.

With all due respect Dad, that's not what's happening here. A contrary opinion isn't necessarily a tirade. What is happening is that some people are clouding the issues by using fairly ridiculous hyperbole and personalisation and people respond to that rather than the content of the argument. I think that the way things are going points to a fairly fundamental split emerging in the fans and what they want. Are we to be a lower league highland sourced club, or are we a cosmopolitan one? Are we prepared to live with the consequences of another relegation because we play cavalier football? Are we prepared as a support to take a share of the responsibility if it doesn't pan out? Or do we want a club that challenge in the SPL with the rules that come with it? Your choice, but I just hope that the club survives the choices that seem to be currently being made.

CallieAnne, I respect your opinion but have to disagree with some of the points that you make. I really didn't see any long ball game on saturday, or any great lack of ability. There was no lack of spirit either, so all in all I reckon that's an improvement on last year and is precisely what the fans were asking for. there was a willingness to go after both games this season, and Nick Ross would have won this game if not for an incredible save from Bell. The only real dampner was OTJ losing the heid, but I'm not going to cast stones on that one. What I can't understand is despite all that, despite your complimentary tickets, despite the free hospitality and despite more attempts at involving the fans (have a look on you tube) it's still not good enough. Not everything will be right yet but people are working damned hard to make it so rather than dismissing the club after one home game. Please tell us what will make ICT good enough - seriously.

Forza, the kids that you regularly see in the "west stand" bit get en bloc complimentaries to be there, it's a school per game, but nothing on saturday because the terms no started yet. We need more of them though.

IHE, I really don't want to rise to this but what the f*ck are you on about. If you have an agenda that wants Butcher out, just have the cojones to say so. Otherwise comment on games that you are at and leave your sniping over the border for someone else.

I looked at the OP last night, then thought no I'll not respond. Looked at it again and still thought the same this morning but I can't sit around here and not reply to what represents the downside of the "keyboard warrior" mentality that hides behind a user name with no accountability and then takes whatever prompted this post out on named individuals in Caley Jags Together. I, like Don, could list a myriad of achievements of the Supporter's Trust AND the Supporter's Club (not least joining together to raise the profile in a year where we really need as many supporters as we can get) I could also list a number of fundraising and fan involvement plans that are happening in the near future. Don also highlights the hours of unpaid and skilled work that the board do and for what? To be denigrated in a five minute post that took less than five seconds of brainpower to compose. Any more and you would have thought the better of it. I know that Kenny Cameron and Terry Butcher read these forums, and they must absolutely despair. As I have said elsewhere, they have responded to everything that the fans asked for last year ( better style of football, more community involvement and the right response to the RFC debacle) and still they get some fans complaining about the poor value of season tickets that they never bought, football that they can't be arsed watching and events that they can't be bothered supporting. It's a bit like watching the neds sniggering behind the bikeshed watching the motivated ones doing something. Rant over. Tell you what OP - I'm on the board of Caley Jags Together. My name's Davie Balfour and if you PM me, I'll give you my phone number so that we can talk this one through instead of sniping on the internet. Deal? dited for spelling (again)

answered your own question there.

Good to see the rancour and pessimism return after one game. One game in which we had the best of the first half, Killie shaded the second half and even when we were down to 10 men we could have won it. We passed the ball on the deck for the majority of the game, something that the people on these boards have shouted long and hard for. I did't see us battering the long ball up to McKay as has been alleged. If we are to play a passing game, we have to make the passes stick better and I think it might be reasonable to expect that this will happen as the team plays more than it's first SPL home game together. I, like some others can be rustrated with Sutherland, but he was direct and forceful today and to expect more might be asking too much. I respect some aspects of TB persisting with him in the position he is in, after the lambasting he took last season for chopping and changing things. As a highland lad, what reaction would there be to his being dropped after all that we have heard about the highland spirit being lacking in the side. BTW, did anyone else notice the entire defence high fiving and supporting each other when they defended well today? As spirit, that'll do for me. OTJ deserved to go. No ifs, no buts. You could see a man who's history of injury flashed before his eyes after a naughty wee tackle where the boy left his foot in. No excuse though, and I think he'll know that tonight, but does it really merit hanging him out to dry? Cammie Bell had at least three game saving stops that I saw, the one from Nick Ross topping the lot. Ross was in utter disbelief that he could have stopped that one. It's the start of the season, the quality of football is better than last year, the potential is far greater and we have a couple of points from games that we may well have lost back then. What will the reaction be if we lose to Hearts next week? I think what I found the most depressing today was the total lack of crowd and the pretty muted support. This is a club that has put a lot of effort into involving fans more, getting kids involved and making it's self more accessible for a public that by and large appears not to care less. It's a club that acted honourably in the close season at the behest of the fans and got less season tickets sold for it's troubles. What do we do about that? That's the subject that we really need to address.

To be honest, St. Mirren were always going to come right back at us after we had got our second and we defended quite easily up to the point of the goal. After making a great stop from Parkin, Ryan made a bit of a hash of the cross for the goal, and that's the only reason they scored. C'est la vie.

proud of my oldfartiness.

Er no.

Naevity? really? Aberdeen have the third biggest budget in the SPL, Hibs have the sixth. We have the tenth. Fact. If we there therefore finish above or near them we are doing well. Fact. We have signed untried but potentially useful players this year, who will hopefully fill the same untried, potentially useful and distinctly unhighland shoes as Rooney, Hayes, Rankin and those others that we mind sae fondly. Naeve?Not really. The boys right.

Tell you what, we are going to do no badly at all this year. Both teams played good footie on the deck and after 45 I'd have taken a draw. Noticed that Shane S had about a 100% rate of getting his head to the ball that Esson launched at him, but does that qualify you as a winger? don't know. Some of our new sassenach recruits are going to have to learn what tackles are acceptable in the SPL, but Meekings could show them- he had a couple of crackers when he came on. it was also nice to see Imrie being subject to an attempted decapitation from his own goalie! We did no bad you know. Bring on the Killie.

Ross, you really would have been better saying nothing at all.