KirkieRobRoy

Think that's true throughout the division, United and County too.

Glad we are in the promotion race and not the relegation race. That is looking absolutely brutal.

Unlucky with the goal, yes. Chalmers' free kick was a cracking strike dealt with by a terrific save, that's all. No luck about it. It did miff me that after the game the BBC online stats had Caley with no shots on target. Chalmers' certainly was.

At least Aaron Doran kept one of his poorest games for the biggest showcase game... I think any team who might go up - County and Downdee Untied included - will need to upskill hugely. The evidence suggests this season that there's a huge gap between even the lower end of the top tier and the second tier. Look at how St Mirren have struggled.

Didn't notice the Mulraney touch at the game, but it was certainly suggested on the radio afterwards. DIsappointing. Fourth cup semi at Hampden we've been at and we've only won the one when we've been a top-tier team. Even first half, didn't respond to Hearts being up a gear after the break but even so it needed the second goal to kill it off. Players like DOran and White just not quite at their best yesterday. Main lack is someone to stash it away. I bet George Oakley wished he was playing at Hampden rather than preparing for Accies' next defeat in front of 2000 people at New Douglas... In short, better team won but they weren't that good. Good show from the ICT support, and the game was proof that the ony real problem with Hampden is the West and East ends. Even with just the north and south part-filled the stadium channels the noise. Atmosphere I thought was good. Oh, one passing thought - did Nathan Austin get a touch of the ball after he came on?

Poor reffing for sure. Austin for Walsh didn't really enhance the team - Austin's first three contributions were to lose possession.

Count me with the corner-flag-theory haters. Teams can dispossess you there and break away and score too. We gave up a couple of promising attacking options to try to kill the game that way. Happily, it paid off this time.

Utterly daft time, agreed (even Embra-based Hearts supporters lose their Saturday lie-in) but booked anyway. But it's hardly 'baffling' - we know how the SFA think and it's never in the interests of paying supporters unless they're Old Firm. And we're also already booked that night for Matthew Zajac's 'Tailor of Inverness' at Cumbernauld Theatre. I wonder if he'll make it to the game.

By jings, that was a miserable afternoon of weather. Memories of that are probably why I still shudder at the thought of ICT in penalty shoot-oots.

El Paso Locomotive? No a bad name that. You don't get them here. Except in Inverurie.

At a loose end, went to see Queens Park 0 Raith 3 yesterday. Playing for Raith, Nat Wedderburn. Started clumsily, gave away several fouls, lucky not to be booked, but had a good second half as Raith took control of the game. They also had Liam Buchanan. Do I remember rightly - aeons ago he was due to sign for us and at the last minute went to Firhill or somewhere?

Admittedly we're in the West but we're the same latitude (or is it longitude?) as Livingston and while we had frost last night, by the time I got up (7.30am) it was bucketing rain. Must have been similar there and surely the pitch will be playable long before 3pm?

In SFL days they used to try to find a current SFL ground. Now that everybody's in the SPFL, I suppose that means there's no objection to McDiarmid. Going by our previous Challenge Cup finals, we surely need more than 3000 capacity?

I bet there are plenty lower crowds than 1000 for early Challenge Cup ties over the years. Actually thought it was a quite decent crowd for 1) The Challenge Cup 2) Against a team we've barely heard of 3) On a Sunday Night 4) Bucketing rain 5) Live on telly.

Did wonder whether the Irish/Welsh teams were much bothered about their participation in this competition. I think the Crusaders' performance and attitude in the second half answered that for me.