BucksburnDandy

Don't mind a Harry Gow but you can spot I'm an immigrant to the Highlands because I think the dream ring is overrated.

Normally I'm all for Club 42 being relegated as they should be gone automatically, and I think the leagues have benefitted from some fresh blood, Kelty, Edinburgh City and Cove have all been promoted into higher leagues, Bonnyrigg have a solid fan base and Spartans have obviously been a well publicised community club for a long time. Indeed I've seen three random legs of these ties over the years: Edinburgh 1-1 East Stirling Montrose 3-1 Brora Cove 4-0 Berwick But on this occasion, I would be sad to see Mick Kennedy getting any glory. I'm still bitter about Darvel, let alone then all the money he's splashing about. So on this rare occasion over recent years, good luck to Stranraer.

Is it just me or is Labour picking up only 38.8% of Tory losses at present actually not an impressive performance from the other main party in English politics?

I think she's due a baby later this year (congratulations to her and her other half) so I don't think the timing works for her just now.

What a brutal state Sturgeon left the SNP in. Yousaf was out of his depth, albeit a genuinely decent guy when he officially opened my place of employment last year. Swinney v Forbes is a fairly miserable choice. Swinney was pretty much rubbish apart from his spells in the finance brief and his first spell as leader was a dreadful time for the SNP. Forbes holds some dreadful social views, throwing away a routine win last year by airing these in public. The state of politics in Scotland just now is grim. The SNP are out of ideas. The Greens are more interested in culture wars than actually being a proper green party. Alba are full of absolute moon howlers and it's sad to see what Alex Salmond has become given he was pretty comfortably the best FM to date (obviously sleepy cuddles overshadows that). Then on the Unionist side, the Tories are their usual hopeless selves, the Lib Dems are a pressure group of shy Tories. Labour can't hold a policy position for any length of time about anything. No doubt if Keith was in number 10 and Sarwar in Bute House, we'd have government by diktat of Ian Murray on the phone from London like the good old days of Jack McConnell being the admin for Gordon Brown. What a shite state of affairs

In my own case, my wife is working dayshift on Saturday so I'm home looking after the wee one (19 months old) as we've no family within 100 miles of us. I'd imagine for others a mix of family responsibilities like above, being put off by the crap season and for some, the ticket prices will be hard to justify.

Fully agreed, the sooner this shitshow of a season is over, the better. The idea that we should want the league season to stay alive with this group of charlatans is for the birds.

Genuinely thought I might be able to give Dingwall (20 minutes from me now) a miss as it would likely be a dead rubber for us. Now, there's a fear in me that not only will I have to go, I'll be watching a very nervous affair from our perspective. What a shitter of a season and I agree, I wish it would just f**k off.

It was night and day. Today was measured discussion with a proper focus on County on their big day today, the battle for survival and a lot of justified and rightful credit given to Cowie and the players. It may be because Robertson and Dodds are based up here and therefore are more knowledgeable about County but even Dodds was coherent and measured in his comments post match, well marshalled by Richard Gordon. There was some comment on Rangers too, and again it was measured without too much hyperbole. Yesterday was the usual shambles of an Open All Mics followed by a rabble from Kenny Mac post matches and the usual Michael Stewart tedious meltdown. If Kenny Mac had been on today, it would have been 5 minutes on County if you are lucky at the end after an hour of tedious Rangers chat about inane nonsense. The handshake would have been hyped up beyond belief. The scrap for 11th would have been completely forgotten about. Perhaps I'm being too millennial here but Kenny Mac sounded like the sort of person who loved that type of borderline bullying type behaviour and would encourage it to knock the new guy down. An unprofessional w****r who should be nowhere near hosting the flagship national radio football programme.

Just thinking exactly the same. And you know what, funny matters more today.

The last part is a good point. The South Irish women benefitted hugely from embracing a smaller stadium in Tallaght, building crowds there to the point where they began to sell out tickets and made womens games an event worth going to. Results improving on the pitch helped but so did the social experience that made more people want to go. Now they've played some games at the Aviva with impressive crowds because of their momentum and folk wanting to be part of the experience. I don't think our womens players would ever accept going to a smaller ground again and in most regardsbI probably agree with them, but it may be a short term help to build crowds and a better matchday experience. If that comes and results improve, then they could return to Hampden. Being among a 6% full Hampden cannot be enjoyable at all.

Agreed. And if we are doing a direct like for like with the Irish on playing England, we pulled in 15k in December for England, less than half their crowd tonight.

A rare thing of late. 3,127 of a crowd though is pitiful.

That was a challenging watch in the first half. Dreadful stuff, so slow, ponderous with no intent. PML should be gone. The players are not taking responsibility either or being brave on the ball. Middle of the kids holidays and the crowd being so poor should ring alarm bells in the SFA hierarchy. But it won't.

Agree fully. They're a massively underachieving squad who genuinely don't look like they care. If they are hugely unhappy with PML, they could do what many players before them have done and disregard his tactics and play their own way to win matches. I used to think Kerr was the biggest issue but actually I think the players have proven to be so. The SFA don't care either judging by giving PML a longer contract.

Oh the system here is not good, no argument. But offside being accurate is a good point. Thankfully another game closer to the end of this terrible season.

Afraid to say offside is one of the few good points about VAR. It's a black and white decision and as much as it has cost us, ultimately the right call has been made. No bother with that aspect of VAR.

Of course he is condoning bigotry. He never will call out anti-Catholic bigotry because it was what he was brought up in and has believed all his life. He will claim it means nothing, of course, but will continue to commit it and boast about it. As for the new law, just don't be a dick to other people and you'll be fine. It's really that simple.

That's cheered me right up after the failed statelet's win. Great bunch of lads those Poles. GIRFUY you stupid bucket hat wearing c***s

Friendly or not, a disgrace of a performance. Complete lack of desire or will to win from this team. Not one positive from tonight.

FTFY

What I am saying will have been said already but just adding my tuppence worth. For 68 minutes, that was pretty good stuff generally. We were more than a match for the Netherlands and created plentiful opportunities while restricting them well. Obviously we were terribly wasteful when given good opportunities, a Scotland trait over decades. But have to say up to that point, I was content. The way the roof collapsed in on us after that was pish. Dreadfully weak goals to lose with a bucket load of preventable errors and lack of concentration. The issue is that it has become the norm in games since the summer last year. We coasted through the autumn and our standards have slipped defensively. Stating the obvious but Tierney and Gilmour are vital based on last night, particularly if McGregor struggles for fitness. Gilmour was excellent generally, a lovely player. A lot of the rest of this post will be negative. Shankland did fine but no more than that. Had a very good first 20 but felt like he faded as the game went on and a sitter of a miss. He's fine but I prefer Dykes in that type of game, Shankland I think will be a good impact player later on in games. Patterson, he needs out of Everton. The regression in his all round play compared to 2021 is stark. I thought he was the weak link up until the subs. Souttar was just horrendous, gave me PTSD of his equally horrendous performance in Haifa in 2018. Porteous was dreadful after the subs were made, the first time I feel like we've seen Hibs level Porto in a Scotland jersey. Hopefully a one off. Hendry wasn't a big offender but I do think he's lost a bit of edge since his move to Saudi. I think it was useful to learn what we learned last autumn again, calling for players to be given a chance is fine and dandy but actually there are very few capable of coming into our best 11 and keeping things on par let alone improving it. We can afford to deviate by 1-2 players at most from our best team, and Clarke knows that hopefully. He experimented against France and Netherlands, had his hand forced defensively and in goals in November, with depressing defensive results.

Compliments to Iceland. Great bunch of lads

Hopefully it works out well for Clach because it would be sad to see this city with a part time League One and no Highland League representation.

I second this sentiment. All the best to Richard Jensen and his compatriots. I'd be content if this is the only superb performance Jensen puts in all season. That's how much I would like Wales to get beat. You just know those jammy gits will get through to the Euros though.