St Mirren V ICT (matchday thread)

[Scotty]

Team lineups

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[caley100]

Wee bit surprised to see Duncan in there from the start, thought Hart did enough last week to merit a start.

CC must have decided to go for a more defensive set up.

[crownjaggie]

What a boy Dargo  1-0 yehaaa

[monthecaley]

has anyone emailed the bbc with details of the ross tokely - st mirren rivalry? they seem utterly confused on the radio

[caley100]

Ya beauty Dargs!!

Hope we can stop them from scoring - unlike the last game st TCS.

[Scotty]

has anyone emailed the bbc with details of the ross tokely - st mirren rivalry? they seem utterly confused on the radio

Of course I have  :015: :015: :015: also mentioned the fact that Bayne / Bullock are former County teammates ...... they wondered why they were speaking to each other

[monthecaley]

knew i could rely on you scotty..

i don't think they made any use of your knowledge at half time or in the game. disappointed

[Scotty]

maybe they might next time that Tokes gets booed .... would have thought they would know this already though

[Bridge_Ender]

Sounds bit like St Mrren are just swamping us at the mo... seem to be sitting too deep, need to start moving up a bit.

Can beat this lot!

[Tichy_Blacks_Back]

ST.MIRREN v ICT - LOVE STREET - 28th OCTOBER 2006

CROWD: 4,432

GOALS:  ST.MIRREN 1  ICT 1

SHOTS ON:  ST.MIRREN 5  ICT 2

SHOTS OFF:  ST.MIRREN 5  ICT 6

CORNERS:  ST.MIRREN 9  ICT 2

FOULS:  ST.MIRREN 12  ICT 19

YELLOW:  ST.MIRREN 1  ICT 5

RED:  ST.MIRREN 0  ICT 0

3 points would have been nice but a good point and up to 4th - 3 points behind 2nd placed Hearts and a point behind 3rd placed Rangers

[Tichy_Blacks_Back]

Out of curiosity what is our highest SPL position - have we been 4th before?  Is this another first?

[Tug]

did we not sit first once on a technicality ?

i.e from saturday to sunday

[EWS]

As I said to my brother.  Unimpressive.  Tokely was crap, awful, terrible.  Seemed uninterested, and I thought he would have used this game to say to the St Mirren fans - HA!! Screw you.  But no, looked nervous, slow, off the pace, and rubbish.  Shyed out of challenges and just wasn't very good.

Dods was a rock in defence, our best player by far.

The problems that I rose against Rangers still stand.  No movement, lack of passing, and we resorted to humping it up the park.  There were times I thought we would have moved it forward by passing, but no.  There was actually a time when we had a great break away, with a guy free on the far side, and we chose the wrong pass, and lost the ball.

Unimpressive, unimaginative, crap.  St Mirren deserved the win today, but we could have grabbed it.  We had a great corner and Bayne missed it by mm's.

That said, the ref was a bit touch and go as well.

[Alex MacLeod]

Just home. Game should have been won. We were by far the better team in the first half and deserved to go in at half time leading. Second half was like we wanted to play for a draw. We punted high balls, we gave away balls too easily. Players moved like they were glued to the ground. It was like we were giving them the ball to see what they could do with it. By the end of the second half I was surprised we hadn't been beat.

[Dmacca]

As last week then, need consistancy and a bit more belief by the sound of things.

[Johnboy]

They must keep better possession, especially when in the lead....

[The Mantis]

Against St Mirren's 3-5-2 I was prepared for them to have a lot of the ball and that's how it proved. But when we had the ball, we just gave it right back. We only showed quality in flashes. First half was about right, but second half we were dreadful.

My MoM was Granty who had an excellent game and handled Sutton well, but he must have lost him at the corner (it was away up the far end so it was hard to see).

I don't think St Mirren can play much better than that but still they created very little. Our goal showed how we could knife them open but too many times the final ball was poor, and unforced errors at that- like Russeldinho fluffing an easy pass to Rossco overlapping in the second half in acres of room, or Dargo hanging on to the ball in the first half when he had Barry inside to pass to.

We spent the entire second half punting it clear. The players had no composure and nobody would take a risk and pass it. Russell Duncan looked like it was the wrong day to give him a whole game back in the team, very rusty.

St Mirren are probably the most physical team in the league and they and their fans were well up for it, a bit like us in our first season in the SPL. They make Love St quite an intimidating place, even with 4000 it was much worse than Ibrox the other week. Unfortunately we got dragged into the physical stuff and couldn't keep the ball on the deck, even though it looked like we could hurt them when we did get it down and play.

The five bookings were mostly harsh I thought, and Mr Tumelty seemed to favour the home team, and took about 70 mins to book their player Brittain. He showed his inexperience and was influenced by the crowd. Rankin's was a cynical foul, but Bayne's and McBain's looked harsh, and Barry's seemed to be for dissent. Mind you it seemed to me that Rory nutted the boy and would be getting a red.

And finally.... all credit to Ross who continues to play amidst a storm of abuse from the north bank, even after more than 7 years.

[caley100]

Did we miss Blackie then? thought earlier that Duncan was the wrong choice to bring in, at least Hart has played first team footie recently, and did well.

Anyway another point away from the bottom team.

[Harry Chibber]

My post from P&B....

I thought both sets of fans played their part in a decent game with Rossco getting stick from Mirren and Bullock (Beast) getting stick from us.  Both teams got stuck in and were on top at different parts of the game. Game of 2 halves (much like the game at ICT), neither team played great football but would say ICT edged it in the first half.  MacPherson showed his intent by having the defence play long balls to Mehmet and Sutton, who to be fair gave Munro & Dods no end of hassle, Sutton especially.  When ICT pass the ball about we can play some good football and at times Rankin and Duncan were bossing the midfield, with Bayne causing havoc and Dargo picking on the scraps we looked the better team.  Although there were chances at both ends Dargo finished brilliantly putting us 1-0 up and going in at half time with the lead I felt we were capable of getting all 3 points.

I'm sure MacPherson had the hairdryer out at half time because St Mirren were an improved team the 2nd half and got in our faces.  It seemed that their wing backs/wingers pushed further out wide as our midfield was stretched and although Rankin & Duncan were arguably the best 2 players on the park in the first half they looked lost in the 2nd.  Sutton's goal was inevitable after the pressure was put on and came from a corner where our defence was caught sleeping.  Christie stuck on Hart for Wilson not long after their goal and it got us back in the game for a while but there were only half chances and even though we pushed towards the end it just wasn't to be.

TBH mustn’t grumble at a point away from home but after the first half I think we were more than capable of getting all 3.

Brown ***

Was brilliant between the sticks but his kick outs were dreadful, at times where we were under pressure and it just made us look more vulnerable.... extremely annoying but his handling was excellent and made some important save in the first half.  No chance with Sutton's goal.

Tokely **

Was under scrutiny but these are the sort of games that should test a players character and he failed miserably.  Really poor game, didn't look comfortable at all when the ball landed at his feet and looked confused with how to mark Lappin (??).... just not at the races today

Hastings **

Again, he just didn't know how to pick up the Van Zanten and his distribution was awful.

Dods ****

Solid as ever, tried to make up for Tokely's mistakes but obviously impossible to play 2 positions. MOTM for me

Munro ***

Looked a bit shaky at times but was a decent enough performance

Wilson ***

Made some good runs in the first half but never really did anything with the ball, looked tired 2nd half and was replaced by Hart.

McBain **

Non existent for most of the game and never really gave Hastings any other option than too pump the ball up the park.  Should play in the centre of the park or not at all!!

Rankin  ****

One of our best players, obviously confident after his 2 goals against Falkirk... drifted out of the game in the 2nd half though

Duncan  *** 

Great first half... terrible in the second

Bayne ***

Can't fault his effort but was trying to win headers against 3 solid centre halves, ended up giving away far too many free kicks 

Dargo ****

Worked harder than he has done all season and took his goal well.

Subs

Hart ***

Great sub to have and looked dangerous whenever he got the ball

McCallister *

Only got 5 minutes

[RiG]

Like Hairy Chibber I am also being lazy and C n P'ing

**** road works near Stirling and the traffic in Glasgow caused my Megabus to be over an hour late with me arriving in Glasgow at just after 15:00. After a quick scarper to Central I got there to see a train on route to Paisley just about to leave. Pelted along to platform 13 to see it haul away. Had to wait another 10 - 15 minutes for the next one which was then late leaving by another 5 - 10 minutes. Got into Paisley about half past three and on the way to Love Street heard that Dargo had scored. Arrived 5 minutes before half time and got in for a tenner in the end thanks to a lovely, sympathetic woman who was hanging about the turnstyles  :003:

Because of that I can only comment on the 2nd half and St. Mirren basically shagged us utterly dominating posession and playing the ball out well. For a time they were matching us in the God awful long ball rubbish but soon started to get it down and get it wide to the impressive Lappin on the left and *insert name here* on the right. The number of crosses Mirren got into the box were phenominal and seemed to cause us no end of problems in defence. We looked very shaky trying to clear it away.

Mirren deservedly drew level based on sheer posession and creation of goal scoring chances. I'd be interested to see the goal again, looked like Sutton had no ICT player near him when he headed towards goal. Reminded me of Dods goal for us against Hearts at Tynie a season or so ago.

At our end Dargo had a good shot which might have sneaked in but Wilson got in the way and was offside anyway. A glorious Hart corner should have been buried by Bayne but he missed his header. We had another great chance which escapes me right now but at the end of the day a draw was the least Mirren deserved.

As fo the size of our support, shocked that never came up earlier actually, I thought it was a good number as well bearing in mind most were faced with a 10 - 12 hour day trip to watch ICT today.

[Caley Stan]

Must stress just how much Rossco and Hastings stood off their wide men. We seemed content to spend the second half sitting very deep and scrambling the ball away to Bayne and Dargo who both put in a terrific amount of running.

It was very frustrating to watch and i spent most of the second half screaming for us to get the ball down and calm down. Would've been great to see Dennis get 20 minutes but instead Charlie gave Rory 10. Rory was ineffectual, and possibly deserved to get sent off.

We must make changes before the Aberdeen game.

[ictchris]

I thought the main problem we had yesterday was in midfield, where we were out of the game completely in the second half.  In the first half I thought Russell Duncan did quite well, covering back, putting pressure on players and mopping up.  He also won the ball and released Wilson for the goal.  In the second half he was not as good, made some poor passes and was pressured out fo the game.  It hought John Rankin was a total passenger, he didn't do anything of note for the entire 90 minutes.  Richie Hart looked industrious when he came on, I think he perhaps deserves a run-out against Aberdeen at the expense of Rankin.

We did miss Black's use of the ball though.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

For my comments - se Feedback PLEASE Thread.  :016:

[Harry Chibber]

:014: :015:

[EWS]

Did anyone see Blackie in the stand?  I was sure that I spotted him sitting near me by his completly gay earring....anyone else catch him?