Rasczak

Goal for Wick. One of their trialists. 5-1 ICT

Holwarth and Brown on for Cheyne and Gorman

5-0 ICT Ali Sutherland from a neat chip in from Adam Evans

Sutherland is fast. His run through has just got Christie set up to make it 4-0

Second half. Ali Sutherland on for Carl Tremarco

H-T 3-0 A couple of good chances for Wick but we are holding on

I think so. Connor Pepper on for Nick Ross

3-0 ICT Evans deep cross from Greenhalgh

2-0 ICT Draper from the edge of the box, assist by Evans

1-0 ICT Nick Ross, cross from Christie

1 MacKay 2 Jay Cheyne 3 Carl Tremarco 4 Ross Draper 5 Matthew Cooper 6 Joe Gorman 7 Adam Evans 8 Ryan Christie 9 Ben Greenhalgh 10 Danny Devine 11 Nick Ross Subs 12 Calum Holwarth 14 Jason Brown 15 Ali Sutherland 16 Conor Pepper

Just about to leave for the Wick game tonight. Will try and send some updates.

He is not taking the job! I'll have to speak to my Wick source, the one who gave me the Graham Bayne story, tomorrow. Mind you he did tell me this morning that Rossco's 2 year coaching contract was at ICT, so I can't trust everything he says. Think your Wick source has been spending to much time in E Camps Bar! Possibly And the BBC story has been updated to say Barry has ruled himself out for family and business reasons.

He is not taking the job! I'll have to speak to my Wick source, the one who gave me the Graham Bayne story, tomorrow. Mind you he did tell me this morning that Rossco's 2 year coaching contract was at ICT, so I can't trust everything he says.

We must have seen that at the same time.

Barry Wilson has been offered the Queen of the South manager's job, and given 24 hours to make up his mind, according to the BBC. Will be a blow for Wick Academy if he goes, but it could be a good opportunity for him.

TBH the socks were just getting something from the template that wasn't just plain single colour, I didn't really think we would get them, and the latest teaser seems to put the kibosh on it anyway. The shirt though I have a feeling about. I do like black as the main colour on away tops, but the teasers just said red top to me.

So from the teasers, here's my guess as to what we are getting.

There we go, cast iron proof that Mr Bannerman is wrong about the number of refuseniks. I mean if someone lives in Inverness now, then it goes without saying that they must have followed, without necessarily attending, either Caledonian or Thistle 20 years ago mustn't they.

I see John Brown has been cited for his comments about the ref. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22458139 Seems to me like there should be no case to answer. As the SFA have also cited Pawlett, and he appears to have accepted this, then it is means the SFA agree that he ref got it wrong so they are agreeing with Bomber, but still taking him to task for saying it. The rule is written so that even if a manager is right (with SFA confirmation of the fact) about a ref, they are not allowed to say so.

The only defence would be that Raven clipped the player without intent, by the player running across him and catching his leg in normal stride. Having looked at the highlights, that is debateable and I feel that an appeal would not be upheld. That wouldn't be the defence IMO. The scenario for a sending off is 2 fold, first would a free kick or penalty be given regardless of any other factors, second if there had been no infringement would the attacker have an obvious chance to score. I think that in any other circumstances, the foul would have been given anyway, what is to debated is whether Vine had a clear chance at goal if it were not for the foul. My first thought, the sanitised version anyway, watching on screen was, "Wait a minute, who else would get there, is there a red coming.", so wasn't surprised. Having seen the replay at the time, I haven't watched the highlights yet, it did look like maybe there was cover and so it may not be an obvious chance. Any appeal would likely be on the basis that it was not an obvious chance, looking to get it reduced to a yellow.

But under the proposal there would have been be no SPL, just a single league body who arrange the leagues. Teams then play games through the season based on their position at the beginning. Except come up with a proposal that gives most benefit to most teams, even through it is not perfect and get the ball rolling to get where we want to be. No point in thinking out of the box like that. But that is exactly how it seems to be phrased; So you are against the current playoffs between the second bottom in the SFL leagues and 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the league below ? If you are a SFL1 club then you should only play SFL1 clubs and not have to play against SFL2 clubs to finish the season. I don't expect you are against the playoffs, but surely you can see how that can be inferred. Think of it as the middle 8 in effect being an extended play off for the relegation and promotion places. You may believe the extended period is too long, but the intention of giving playoffs, which have been asked for, is there. You (both ?) also seem to be under the impression that I think the 12-12 to 8-8-8 is the panacea for the league. It is not and I can see that it is not perfect, some clubs will lose out on the big games, the split effects are bigger than now, there could be more chance of relegation if your form dips at the wrong time. I can see the good points of it as well, more potential opponents, a second chance at staying up if you had a bad early season, and see that it was never meant to be the solver of issues on its own. It was a concession to get the bits that everyone wants, single league body, fairer financial distribution, playoffs etc. If we had got it, then we could have had a chance to see if it would work for Scotland, just because it didn't work elsewhere doesn't automatically mean it wouldn't have worked for us. If it didn't, which I agree is not unlikely, then further change wouldn't be blocked by 2 clubs with a disproportionate ideas of their own importance.

So you are saying that you wouldn't want to risk having to play such lowly teams as, for example this season, Morton, Partick Thistle, Falkirk and Livingstone, who are obviously so much lesser teams than ICT ? Because each club would have different ideas on which to cherry pick and so a single proposal that got most of what was needed would have got part way there and made it easier to get the rest if it was really needed later. And of course the difference in class and ability between SPL teams and the current SFL1 is so great that they no top 4 SFL1 team could ever push a bottom 4 SPL team to need a 3 goal comeback and extra time in a national cup semi-fin... oh wait. But it keeps getting said that is what the fans want, but you are also saying you don't want to play the top 4 of the SFL. So where do the extra 4 teams for the top league come from ? Why is it abhorrent to have the possibility of playing the 12th to 16th top teams under 12-12 to 8-8-8, but brilliant to have the guarantee of playing those exact same teams under a 16 team top league ? For what it's worth I agree that a 16/18 team top league with extra playoffs and possibly an extended League Cup that gives back the extra home games would be a goal to get towards. I also know it cannot be done overnight and to get there we need to show that it is the way. IMNSHO, the proposal as was gave that chance to start the move.

And under the current system it is impossible for teams to have no chance of Europe after 3/5th of the season ? The reports I have seen don't confirm either way if it was all protected measures or just the league structure. Even if it was just the league structure, then by offering the 9-3 more compromise has been given. The kudos you mention is one thing, they look good in the eyes of others and that in itself could bring in increased gates from away fans. "They helped us get a fairer share of the cash, I'll go to away games there". Fanciful I know but not impossible. And they could also be looking long term, giving up a little now, getting more overall income back into the game so they end up with more, remember 1% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Not with the current set up of 2 clubs being able to block anything for the other 40. But going to 12-12-18 with all the other things it would have brought may well have given us the stepping stone needed to get a set up in place that would have given us that. Of course if 12-12-18 had gone through, got Scottish football on a stable setting, given the excitement and competition we need, improved our UEFA and FIFA rankings, then been changed to a 16 team top division as that was the next step forward, there would still be those who say it would be a failure as it had to change. It may not be perfect, I have never said it was, but it seems to me to be right for right now. Something else may be better for another time.

What like it has been for the last 15 years ? Who said it couldn't be changed for 3 years ? Who ever told you that was wrong. What was in the original proposal was that any structure changes within 3 years needed a larger majority than most other changes. If everyone wanted to change after the first year it could be done. From the reports, even that was removed and changes to structure would be on the same majority as everything else so the single sticking point that St Mirren gave as the reason for saying no was removed and they still said no. But to get the good points above that would help the lower end, there had to be compromise from the higher end, as they would lose out. You were never going to get the money redistribution without there being something in it for those giving up the biggest share of money. So you couldn't just cherry pick what you like as not everyone would cherry pick the same things and so there would have been no chance of getting what you want. And will you take Stuart Gilmour with them ? The St Mirren vote seems to me to have been about them being convinced they would have been in the middle 8 nearly every season, and then losing out on potential home games with the big teams, Celtic, ICT etc. Thing is if that is their normal position then they likely miss out on that game anyway, and if we went with a 16 team league, once home and away, then they definitely miss it. Yes 12-12-18 is not perfect, but there is no perfect solution for everyone. I posted some thoughts on a possible format last It gave a top 16 with playoffs at top and bottom, and although some here liked some of it, there were some points that probably would never be agreed on by enough teams. This was a chance to get the bits that most fans want, fairer distribution of money, playoffs, pyramid system, with a compromise on how we got there and making it easier to tweak later if it wasn't working. It seems to me some teams, and people, couldn't see that we needed to take a little pain in the short term, to make it better long term.