DoofersDad

Most ridiculous post I've ever read on any forum . I don't agree with Northstand but his post is nothing like as ridiculous as yours.

First mention on the BBC on-line commentary after he came off the bench "Foul by Billy McKay on Clayton Failla, free kick awarded." Presumably saving his goals for the weekend.

Does it matter? Whoever it is they'll have very little to do.

Or you could go to Drumbuie and have a Drambuie

Earlier in the season we were 2-1 down at Tynecastle. Foran got sent off and Shinnie was subbed. Pepper came on and grabbed the equaliser at the death. Proof that we can do better without them.

are we talking about the hearts semi here ? when i was at the game and when i watched it on tv it was shane sutherland who crossed the ball both times. So it was. Apologies.

Better to have a statue of Billy MacKay - we'll only need to buy half the quantity of bronze.

I'll defend the guys here. The more you see them the more you see why they missed. The ball in from Proctor was rollong nicely and then took a huge bobble before it reached Rooney. He was timing his run to stroke it in but because of the bobble the ball reached him later and a ball which was rolling was suddenly in the air. He had a fraction of a second to adjust but wasn't quite able to. He was unlucky. To be fair to Billy, there is some fault from Draper here, he took a bit of a heavy first touch and the ball he played across was firmer than it needed to be. Billy couldn't get to it with the favoured left foot and probably felt he had time to control it with his right and knock it in with his left but the touch was heavy and the defenders got back very quickly in numbers. Clearly he should have scored but having lost the initial chance he then did well to keep possession from three defenders and square it to Shinnie - who also probably should have scored but MacDonald did well to stick out a hand to clear. Anyhow, there wouldn't be this debate if it wasn't for a fabulous ball over top by the much maligned Philip Roberts. The clip is worth watching just to enjoy that.

Birmingham are trying to get relegated so they don't have to play Villa next season.

Ah, but what is a team ethic? A good team whether in football or any other walk of life is is one where the results are better than you might expect given the individual attrributes of the team members. In football the aim in any match is to score more goals than your opponents do. Boyd scores goals but he is not adaptable. He will score goals if the team plays to his strengths but not if they don't. Boyd's strength is that he often appears to be a lazy uninterested spectator and then the defenders lay off him and suddenly there is half a chance and - boom. It's in the back of the net. If the game plan is built round his strengths and the attributes of the rest of the team can create the opportunities for him then he will be an asset to the team. Just because he doesn't run around like a headless chicken looking for the ball when he's not getting a touch does not mean he's not a team player. It means his team mates aren't doing their role in the team well enough.

Better to be in a scoring position and miss than not be in a scoring position at all

Is it not the Bridge club that plays in the Social Club building?

In the event that the ruling is that Hearts be disqualified, I wonder if that would mean that the match is deemed not to have taken place and therefore the bookings which would otherwise rule 3 of our key players out of the final would also be deemed not to apply? Probably an academic question because the cynic in me says that whatever should happen here, Hearts will not be thrown out of the competition. They will say Hearts were not aware of the situation and acted in good faith. They will simply apply the ban to Wilson in the final and deem that as appropriate action. But the issue here is not whether Hearts have acted in good faith or not. If the rules have been broken then it is ICT who are the victims. It was a very tight match and had Hearts not played a first choice defender who appears to have been ineligible then there must be doubt as to whether the result would have been different. We should not suffer from their failure to abide by the rules of the competition whether they were aware of the situation or not. It's the same principle as being done for speeding in a 30mph limit - claiming you were not aware of the speed limit is no defence.

...and if so, who will pay for the expense of 2000 ICT supporters travelling to the game? Why should we be out of pocket if it is adjudged that Hearts broke the rules? If they broke the rules they should be disqualified. End of.

I like cricket but I am not going to spend any time watching either of the capital's 2 sides playing the game and I don't think many other people are either. Therefore I don't see why a team needs to play the game in a facility which caters for the viewing public. I can see no good reason why the two teams can't share the pitch at Fraser Park. Failing that, is there any good reason why a square could not be developed on the wide open spaces at the Bught?

The conundrum to me is how come Toni gets a yellow card for cleaning his boots whilst MacDonald is allowed to scream at an opponent without the referee taking any action at all? Threatening behaviour is surely a foul and as Roberts had a goal scoring opportunity, should MacDonald not have been shown red? OK, a bit tongue in cheek perhaps but what Toni did is no different to what keepers do all the time and there is a difference between trying to unsettle your opponent indirectly by a bit of gamesmanship and putting your opponent off by behaviour specifically directed at them.

Just a word on the SPL games this weekend. all three games were draws so the 6 clubs involved shared 6 points between them instead of 9. We are 7 points ahead of the team in 7th with 2 games in hand.

Their ban on signings has not been lifted. The punishment was always that they could only sign players 21 and under. No it wasn't http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21061338

If Butcher picks the takers, how are the others gutless besterds? They may have been just as willing to take a penalty as Philips but Butcher might have opted for Philips first.

Hearts won't get thrown out for this. A bit of a coincidence too that the ban on signings was suddenly lifted less than a week before the game with a couple of good players all lined up to go immediately to Tynecastle. I'm sure the fact that a final with a team with a small fan base might not be what the powers that be are looking for has nothing to do with any of this. By the way, great to see Liverpool humbled in the FA Cup today!

Likely not...but we didn't win and the 18 year old who lost it for us was a Marsella pick, endorsed by Terry,,,and not one of the homegrown youth players. I feel for Roberts because I think that losing a match as a result of his failure is going to do bugger all for his confidence going forward....but I do wonder why he was picked to take the penalty in the first place......I really do! Shame on you! We did not loose the match because of his failure. It was great work from him that set up the chance for MacKay in extra time. We lost because Billy failed to tap in the easiest of chances and because Andrew Shinnie missed a less easy chance a little later. Had either scored then there would have been no penalties. Even then, had more experienced players such as Draper and Warren demonstrated the same willingness to take a kick as he did then maybe he would not have been put in that difficult position. You say "I feel for Roberts because I think that losing a match as a result of his failure is going to do bugger all for his confidence going forward". What will do bugger all for his confidence is people like you blaming him unfairly.

First thing to say is that Hearts deserved their victory even if they were lucky to get it. I know that sounds contradictory but let me explain. Hearts players and fans were really up for this and at times there was a wall of sound coming from the main stand. Our fans were great but the Hearts players couldn't help but be motivated by the level of support they were getting. And their manager out thought ours. The tactic from the outset was to stop us from playing and they did that very effectively even if it was also often very unfairly. But for me, what beat us yesterday was not the opposition but the referee. Hearts laid their stall out early and the referee did nothing about it. Ngoo could have been in the book in the first couple of minutes and his persistent fouling should have had him off before the end of the first half. Billy MacKay was being constantly fouled but never getting free kicks awarded. Foran may have been lucky not get a second yellow but he was unlucky to get the first. Hearts were committing more obvious fouls than that and not even being penalised. The referee was correct to turn down Hearts' early penalty appeal but why no yellow card for simulation? Three Inverness players were yellow carded knowing that if we were to win, they would miss the final and all three were yellow carded when Hearts players who committed more and worse fouls got off scot free. How we could end up with 2 more players in the book than Hearts simply beggars belief. It is surely difficult for the rest of the team to be fully fired up in the knowledge that should you reach the final an incompetent official has seen to it that 3 of your best players will not be there. Despite all this, we should still have won. Billy's miss in extra time is inexplicable but hopefully he can put it behind him and carry on in the league where he left off. Hopefully he will learn that if the ball is there to be hit - hit it. It seems that everything conspired against us yesterday but still we lost only by the narrowest of margins. But let's take the positives from this. To have come into the match expecting to win and then losing so narrowly despite everything conspiring against us is a measure of how far we have come this season. It's been a good season and it is important that this disappointing result does not stop our momentum in the league.

Leaving aside the politics of what harm this might or might not do in terms of relationships and discussions with the authorities - a subject I do not feel I can comment on, although clearly it is not going to help - I wonder just what the point of doing this was? If the person who threw it thinks of themselves as a supporter of the club I wonder how he (or she) thinks their actions demonstrated support to the club? I can think of none. The potential harm had the flare fallen short and landed in the crowd is obvious. And the risk to the person who threw it of being identified, prosecuted and banned from future games is also obvious. Utterly, utterly stupid.

I got up to 21 before I ran out of digits.

I agree with Luke that it is a test of the penalty taker and not the keeper. However some keepers have more of a presence than others and this puts added pressure on the taker as they sense they have a little less margin for error. Whilst Reguero has done very well since he's come in I agree with the poster who felt he really didn't fancy it. I think Esson has more presence for a spot kick and is the more likely to stop a penalty. As we had only used 2 of our subs, I think we maybe missed a trick here by not bringing Esson on a couple of minutes before the final whistle. Coming back to Luke's point, this would have placed no particular pressure on Esson as you don't expect a keeper to save a penalty. It would have put pressure on the Hearts players who would know that the reason the substitution was taking place was because Esson was felt to be a better spot stopper.