stevoraith

However bad you are feeling this morning Queens fans, I’m feeling worse. Had planned to go but wasn’t feeling great so didn’t bother. So not only did I miss yet another incredible late comeback from this incredible team, I’ve got my daughter moaning at me for not taking her through The highlights make great viewing though, some of the moves in the first half in particular were a joy to watch. The red card was absolutely the correct decision, and will put us in a bit of bother for 2 games. The penalty….. let’s just say if there was VAR in the championship that decision would have been overturned. Fantastic cross from McGill for the equaliser and ridiculous composure from Millen for the winner. I love this team

This fucking team

1- Top four. 2nd looking likely at the moment but you never know what will happen with injuries and/or other teams signings. Absolutely can’t see us beating United over the whole season. But again, you never know…. 2- ‘96-‘97

Having had some time to digest, the key standouts for me are; 1- Scoring late goals instead of conceding them. Last season we didn’t score a single goal after 85mins, and those we conceded cost us 3points. This season we’ve scored 3 winners and an equaliser in that period, getting us an extra 10points. 2- The ability to game manage, or ‘see a game out’. Last season even when we went ahead it was only about 50:50 that we would manage to win the game. We even lost 1 in 10 games we went ahead in. This season we’ve never lost a game where we’ve been ahead and we’ve won nearly 90% of them. Both of those stats speak to the same thing for me- character and belief right throughout the squad. Better strength in depth of the squad must also be a massive factor, and that probably feeds into Murray being able to make better tactical choices towards the end of games. I bloody love the direction this club is going in.

Again using the visualiser from Tx, this may not be 100% accurate as I’m using my small phone screen to decipher, but I think the following is true; Goals in the last 5mins of the 1st half 22/23 F=3 A=3 23/24 F=1 A=1 Goals in the first 10mins of the second half 22/23 F=4 A=10 23/24 F=0 A=2 Goals in the last 5mins (85mins onwards) 22/23 F=0 A=3 23/24 F=4 A=0 Last season we lost 3 points by losing late goals, this season so far we’ve gained 10points with late goals. What a turn-around.

Brilliant effort Tx, I love this type of shit. Using your excellent visualiser I’ve put some stats on this year compared to last year. In 22/23 we went behind in 18 games. We lost 83% of games we went behind. We won only 6% of games we went behind (just 1 win from a losing position all season). We took 0.28ppg from a losing position. In 23/24 we’ve been behind in 3 games. We’ve won and lost 33% of the games where we’ve gone behind. We’ve taken 1.33ppg from a losing position so far. In 22/23 we took the lead in 21 games. We won 52% of the games where we took the lead. We lost 10% of the games where we took the lead. We took 1.95ppg from a winning position. In 23/24 we’ve taken the lead in 8 games so far. We've won 88% of games where we’ve gone in front. We’ve never lost a game from a winning position so far. We’ve taken 2.75ppg from games where we’ve taken the lead so far. It’s a relatively small sample size for this season so far but the stats clearly back up the feeling we have of this team being more resilient than last seasons team. I’m away to look at goal timings now….

Matthews is a strange one. On the face of it we don’t really need him back. We’ve got Brown and Byrne both playing well in the position that Matthews is best suited to. So on current form, if everyone is fit, a fit Matthews doesn’t get into the side. But…. if he’s fit it really makes it less imperative that we have cover for centre half. Because a fit Matthews allows us to drop Brown into CH and put Matthews in as a like for like replacement for Brown without disrupting the shape of the rest of the team. Fingers crossed he gets fit soon because a fit Matthews is a fantastic asset.

I’d be surprised if it’s a big crowd to be honest. Having seen 3 derbies already this season, with another 2 to come, I think I’ll give this one a miss. Just me with a bit of Townie fatigue or anyone else feeling the same?

100% agree, I just thought it was in the same vein as kicking the ball away after a free kick has been awarded which would be a booking. It’s exactly what I would have expected someone like Dylan Easton to do though so fair play!

Unbelievable how our bench could behave like that. I hope McPake has a written letter of apology on his desk from every one of them on Monday morning for showing such disrespect. As for the game, even my daughter who goes more for the people-watching and banter than the actual football commented on how slow we were on the ball. If we’d lost the last-minute goal we really couldn’t have complained as we were poor all game and didn’t look like creating anything. I thought the ref had a decent game, but the one thing that did incense me was when we took a throw over on the railway side and a second ball then came back on the pitch. Jakubiak ran towards the second ball and instead of kicking it off the pitch he played an inch perfect pass to intercept the real ball and break up our attack. Surely that should have been a booking? Not many better feelings than a last minute derby winner when you really don’t deserve it!

To be fair the narrative that you guys are pish is mostly coming from your own fans. That’s absolutely not the case on the evidence of the two games so far against us and I’d agree with most that it’ll probably be tight with a single goal probably the most likely winning margin if there is a winner.

The story goes that when we were laying our pitch we accidentally specced a rugby base layer or something like that so the pitch is significantly better than other artificial surfaces, including Livingstons which was laid the same summer by the same company.

Was thinking the same. I’m not a ST holder but normally get the emails about games etc. Haven’t got the one with the option to vote on giving the RS to Utd.

Gutted this game has fallen on the first weekend of the school holidays- we’re leaving Saturday morning so won’t make the game. Sounds like it’ll be a healthy crowd though, let’s hope for an entertaining match.

We get wee sly digs from some other fans about where our money is coming from and why we aren’t asking more questions or feeling uneasy about the level of investment. Open and honest interviews like that are why we as a fan base are relaxed about the the direction the club is taking. Of course we may be wrong but it certainly feels like the investment is built on a solid platform with sound business acumen rather than some individuals dumping some money in to get some quick success before leaving us with a load of debt.

Agreed, it’s absolutely bowfing, even before you factor in the sectarian connotations.

I don’t think we’ll see it again- far fewer did it this week and the ones that did got boo’d and when they went up to (I think) Jack Hamilton he clearly told them to leave the park. I think it’ll probably be lesson learned.

The save from big Kev with his feet at the near post and the composure from Gullan to sell the dummy before releasing that rocket were absolutely superb. The rest of the match…. Not so much. But who gives a shit, the hoodoo is broken and this team have some steel about them. Being a part of the Rovers family right now is a great feeling.

Past experience says Murray doesn’t like to play ‘experimental’ sides in games like this, he tends to stick to his strongest team. For that reason I think we’ll stick to Dabrowski, Dick, Murray, Watson, Millen at the back. However, the embarrassment of riches we have in the forward positions makes me think he may rotate the starters and subs for the 3 positions behind Hamilton.

What’s happened to the k107 Saturday sports show? Am I being daft or is it not been on this season?

Sorry, pre-morning-coffee I missed the tongue-in-cheek nature of your point.

Scotty, you’re not seriously suggesting that the creator of the tifo should have done some research to ensure the accuracy of the train are you? Does it really have any bearing on the tongue-in-cheek point they were clearly making?

Anyone know how many Rovers fans there were? A wee mention for some common-sense policing/stewarding today. When it became obvious that there were far more of the young team up the back than there was seats to accommodate them, instead of just making them all go back to their allocated seats they opened up the section at front so they could all still stay together. Thought it was refreshing to see that level of common-sense to avoid escalating any aggro.

Dunfermline fans claiming that “it’s just another league game” while simultaneously saying that they’re confident because their team “are in the habit of turning up for the big occasions” is an amusing take. FWIW, now that the day is here the pessimism is setting in. My daughters first trip to East End- don’t think we’ve won there in her lifetime, let’s hope she’s not the jinx

Final block now on sale and looks like a dozen or so tickets sold for it. Good effort lads, let’s hope the team turn up in the same way that we are