R.R.FC

Called it.

1300 viewers for yesterday’s game. Obviously a lot of those would be season ticket holders but it is better than I expected tbh. You’d probably be looking at an attendance of around 1800 at the game in normal circumstances so it is a decent effort. Well done to all at RaithTV for the excellent service. When you see issues clubs like Inverness, Arbroath, Ayr and Partick Thistle have had as well as teething issues at a few other clubs we are very fortunate the club have produced a product which has been great from the very first showing. I think that it reflected in the numbers tuning in (winning convincingly most weeks obviously helps too!!).

Anyway...seeing the highlights doesn’t change my opinion of the game too much. I think our late equaliser wasn’t totally undeserved despite not being great on the day. Expected a bit more from Dundee, can understand their frustrations, they got visibly weaker with every substitution they made. We got away with one with the Davo handball. The ref was in a good position as well. The only defence I can think is that it appeared to hit his elbow which was in at his side rather than his hand which was further out in a more unnatural position. Strange that Afolabi was the only one to strongly appeal.

Absolutely, £15k profit for the club with the Coca Cola cup kits and with over 100 sold in the first couple of hours, looks like this one is heading the same way. Great effort by Ruaridh fronting up the 5 figure sum from his business last year to place the initial order for the club without risk if they didn’t sell. Between that and the Donate a ticket campaign it is great for the club to have someone with these sorts of ideas and ambition helping out.

Dundee deserve the lead based on their spell of pressure in the 5-10 minutes before the goal. Bit of a non event before that. We’ve been poor. Loko hasn’t offered anything, we are really missing Duku. Need to hold the ball up better so our midfield can play off the striker and get into the game. Great strike by Adam and that pass in the first 10 minutes was something else, he is a cut above on the ball. Picture quality has, for the most part, been fine for me. The less said about the commentary the better. Also I don’t seem to be getting a score and time on the screen, do Dundee not do that?

No Duku for us which is a huge loss. Hopefully just the knock he has been nursing the last few weeks rather than anything serious. Fingers crossed Lars can prove to be an adequate replacement. As said at the start of the thread looking forward to our promising young midfield challenging itself against the quality and experience Dundee have in there. Should be a good game, hopefully the weather doesn’t spoil it too much. 2-1 to Dundee I think. The thought of the pace and power of Afolabi up against Bene and Davo is giving me the fear. We look susceptible to the long ball over the top of our high line and with Dorrans and Adam supplying Afolabi I think Dundee will get a bit of joy from that. Would be nice to continue our promising start but anything we get here is a bonus.

When was the last time we won at Dens in the league? Weirdly, I think we have won our last 3 Scottish Cup ties there but I can’t remember a league win off the top of my head.

Don’t know exactly but I’d imagine it’ll be 50+ but that’s including sub appearances. Although those appearances were between the ages of 16-21. It has all been covered before but there is no doubt he would not be anywhere near us or this level without injuries. He had his breakthrough season under Grant Murray in 14/15 where at 19 years old he finished the season with 6 goals in his last 13 games at Championship level. He picked up where he left off the next season with 2 in his first 2 games but unfortunately suffered his first ACL injury 30 minutes into that second game missing the whole season. He came back during the Gary Locke season and although he should never have been loaned out he, understandably, took a bit of time to get back to his previously levels. He admitted himself he struggled a bit with his rehab and probably didn’t come back quite as fit as he should have and he has learned from that for his subsequent recoveries. Unfortunately for us at the time, he got his fitness and sharpness back with Dumbarton and finished the season well with 4 in his last 10. Since then all his appearances have been at League One level where he has been a cut above any time he was fit. He has also scored 5 goals in 6 games against Championship/Premier League teams in cup games during that time. It’s a real shame we only got to see Vaughan, Nisbet and Hendry play a full 90 minutes together once (5-1 win at Dumbarton). Would love for him to get 2-3 seasons with regular games and without injuries to see if he can still fulfil his potential. There is a risk this may be one injury too many but the positive is that when he came back last time it was like he’d never been away and scored 2 in his 2 appearances and still stood out a mile. Although I’ve highlighted his goal scoring record his best asset is his creativity, he is superb on the ball and a joy to watch when on it, he will fit really well into McGlynn’s current style. I think he showed enough in his cameo at Tynecastle for us to be cautiously optimistic if he can just get a consistent run of games I think he can still be a big asset to a side like ours at this level. But it is a fairly big ‘if’ at the moment. Apologies, I realise that is a lot more about Vaughan than you would ever care to know! But hopefully explains why Rovers fans have such a high opinion of him.

McGlynn second time around couldn’t be any more different than his first spell. We don’t really tend to play anything other than an open attacking game since he came back. A few seasons working under Brendan Rodgers at Celtic has made his style much more aesthetically pleasing when compared to his previous Craig Levein learned hoofball. Will wait to see what the injury situation is before making any predictions. Kevin MacDonald, Benedictus, Ross and Vaughan all look to be doubts after today in addition to Ugwu already missing. Will be interesting to see how our young midfield measure up to the quality and experience Dundee have in there. I think it is the strongest area of our team but I’m sure Dundee fans would say the same about their midfield. Should be a good watch.

Dylan Tait’s energy levels are incredible. Always the one initiating the press even at this stage and is quick to get back into the shape if the press is beaten.

Surprised that Dobbie free kick wasn’t given as a goal...

Or not. Well deserved for Queens, very poor second half from us so far, totally switched off.

We have not going second half at all. Hopefully can weather the storm without conceding and get back into it.

Thanks for the replies, wasn’t instant for me which was the concern but understandable given the time, all sorted now.

Anyone that has signed up, how long does it take for your password to be emailed through?

I know Paul Smith could just be telling us what he wants us to hear but he seems to speak quite openly and frankly about it in his pre match interview. Grant wasn’t happy with his playing time and thought he’d be playing a bigger part. John and Paul obviously didn’t seem him getting the game time he wanted so agreed to let him move on. Not sure there is much more to it, certainly hope not anyway. Although you would have thought his playing time would have been discussed when renewing his contract. Hopefully his wage will have freed up enough to bring in another loan player although I am not sure at this stage what would be the priority position to strengthen.

Hopefully the weather isn’t as bad as that forecast predicts. I really enjoy watching us under McGlynn, we are a very decent footballing side on our day. However, when stormy conditions make that impossible we don’t tend to adapt very well and I don’t think we really have personnel suited for when things become a slugfest. Thinking particularly of the draw at Stranraer and defeat away to Dumbarton last season in similar conditions. Hopefully the physicality of Duku up top helps us on that front this season.

Excellent win and performance, great way to start the season. The first goal changed the game, Arbroath were the better side until that point. Very surprised at the way they collapsed after that but credit to us for lifting our game. Genuinely not a failure in the team. The midfield 3 of Tait, Matthews and Hendry were outstanding. The front 3 looked a threat every time they got the ball. When Armstrong is in the mood like that, he is a joy to watch. Full backs were good too and it’s nice to have a threat down both sides this season. Even the much maligned Bene and Davo were very solid after the first goal, although Arbroath played into their hands with the amount of long balls towards them. Great save first half from MacDonald as well, could have been a different game if that had gone in. The only criticism you can have is that we really should have scored more and were very wasteful in the second half but can’t complain too much after scoring 3. Finally, that penalty and second yellow for the TOB was ridiculous. Would be raging if I was an Arbroath fan losing a key player because of that.

We’ve been excellent since the first goal. Lucky to go ahead at that point but dominated since.

Are the streaming figures for yesterday likely to be released at any point?

Looking forward to today. Obviously not the same but after 7 months, just being able to watch a Rovers competitive game in any capacity is welcome. Given our record in the league cup, our injuries (although improving) and the fact East Fife already have a competitive game under their belts I don’t have particularly high expectations, all about building up fitness ahead of the Arbroath game next week for me. Will be interesting to see what the team selection is. Based on who we have available, I’d say our strongest team at the moment is: MacDonald Tumilty Davo Bene MacDonald Matthews Hendry Armstrong Tait Ross Duku However, McGlynn/Smith may elect to rotate the squad ahead of Tuesday’s game to get as many minutes in the squad as possible over the 2 games as they have done through pre season. In particular Brad Spencer has played little or no minutes in the friendlies so I expect him to get a good run out over the next couple of games. Looking forward to it, good luck to the RaithTV guys as well, hopefully if there are any issues, everyone is patient and understanding.

I would agree but injuries have probably been the only constant at the club the last few years so it is hard to pinpoint a reason. In the last few years whilst injuries have been particularly bad, we have changed our training location, changed our home surface, multiple different managers, different sport science and different medical staff. There must be a deeper reason but other than bad luck and a few injury prone players it’s not particularly obvious.

Is there any information from the Scottish Premiership teams on what the numbers for streaming have been so far? Our owner said discussions with Dundee United at our recent friendly suggested they had been very surprised, in a positive way, with uptake for their streaming service. Obviously there is the initial novelty factor which is likely to wear off as the season progresses and the lack of all other match day revenue in addition to tickets mean, of course, there will be a sizeable deficit. But it would be interesting to hear from the Premiership sides what the level of difference has been for them.

Nice of you to say. I would definitely be frustrated if it was roles reversed and understandably angry regarding the reconstruction situation in particular but I would never hope another club goes bust. Andy Mill is the supporters representative on the board. He was approached by large amount of fans separately asking what they could do to raise funds for the club as soon as things were stopped. I don’t believe he approached anyone himself but facilitated these requests by providing a central point for anyone who wanted to contribute by way of a Go Fund Me page. This was obviously before the furlough scheme was put in place and this scheme removed most of the forecasted costs to the end of the season meaning not all the money raised was needed immediately. The chairman always stressed during any interviews that fans should only donate if they had the additional income to do so and that their families, obviously, must come first. Andy Mill and the club also pulled together food hampers with help from local businesses for fans that were struggling financially at the peak of the virus. I won’t take up any more of the Falkirk thread with chat regarding the Rovers but that’s the explanation, you may still have the same opinion, which is fair enough.

Agree with all of this. Felt for Armstrong last season, he had a lot of niggly injuries. He had just got himself fully fit and was finally starting to show what he was capable of when things were stopped.