renton

yeah they did polling, sample size was 3,000 I think. There was a thread on it here as well. reasonably similar to the Ashcroft/YG exit polling in most respects. edit to add: it was a 3 wave polling study carried out by YG, sample size was 4849 in wave 1 and 3719 in wave 2. Splits were (Y/N): nationality Scots born (52.7/47.3) Other UK (27.9/72.1) EU (42.9/57.1) religion: Protestant-Presbyterian (40.9/59.1) Protestant-Episcopalian (18.4/81.6) Catholic (56/44) Other (48.7/51.3) None (atheist/agnostic) (54.1/45.9) Sex Men (53.2/46.8 ) Women (43.4/56.6) By Age: 16-19 (62.5/37.5) 20-24(51.4/48.6) 25-29 (55.2/44..8 ) 30-39 (53.9/46.1) 40-49 (50.6/49.4) 50-59 (47.1/52.9) 60-69 (43.7/56.3) 70+ (34.3/65.7)

Isn't that the kind of franchise your boy Cameron is proposing for the EU referendum? Edinburgh Uni's study of referendum voting showed Yes ahead in all age groups up to 40-49 where it was tied and after which it went massively no, they also broke it down by nationality and showed that Scots born came out something like 53% yes, with EU born at 41% yes and other UK born 20% Yes. While Yes was also higher in lower percentile earnings (although there was little correlation in terms of educational attainment, believe it or not) It's a slightly sensitive subject and to the credit of the SNP that they don't bang on about it, and indeed in controlling the franchise made sure that everyone who lives here was given a say, but Fide is right - had the franchise been restricted to Scots born/Scots domiciled, which is not beyond the realms of decency, then Scotland would've returned a Yes vote.

Yeah, did the same with us. The starting XI you guys got was roughly the 2nd XI we faced after the mass substitutions.

That's brilliant.

Sorry, you are right of course. Better?

Two. Came on as a sub vs Hibs, replacing Stewart. Won the corner that Nade equalised from. Then obviously the game against Rangers that McCulloch injured him in.

Not a clue, though I did see a few of the Hearts young team (and I mean young) hanging around. There was talk of organising 'the boys' I'm guessing the prawpa nawty firms organised a meet, or some such pish.

Looked like a 4-3-3 to start with, quite fluid, with McCord sitting deeper as the play maker. The front three interchanged a fair bit. After the big set of substitutions it was more a 4-4-2. Thought there were some decent signs tonight, McCord was a stand out, Craigen did well enough outside his comfort zone, first on the left of a midfield three and then as an out an out wide player in the four. Clever with the ball at his feet. Toshney and benedictus were solid enough, maybe lacked a wee bit in the air against the big hearts side, but certainly the most comfortable centre backs I've seen at Raith in terms of passing the ball out of defence. Thought McKeown had a good game and Vaughan was livewire, his final ball lacked a wee bit but still the most exciting talent on the pitch for us. Wighton put himself about as well, worked hard but didn't get the chance to show all that much I thought. Megginson was fairly rapid when he came on as well. McKinnon had Rovers playing some good neat passing football, defence into attack and across the flanks was pretty cute, broke down too often in the final third, and sometimes resorted to the lump up the channel which isn't ideal for Wighton or Vaughan, but that will come as the team work on the formation - with the kind of decent ball players we seem to now have we should be able to find that link up more as we progress. We look like having more pace all over the pitch, rather than concentrated on one or two players as we have the last few years, and you could see them pressing Hearts farther up the pitch when they had the ball. All in all, a decent first work out for the team, with some encouraging signs.

yeah, gonna be interesting watching near enough a whole new team......

I'd forgotten him, you b*****d.

Really? I can remember Paul Harvey coming to us from Airdrie for £225,000 after tearing the shit out of us every time we played them, and then doing nothing. There are dozens of examples over the years. Certainly man management plays a role, but then so does the style and ability of the rest of the squad I'd argue. Nade did not play massively differently for us than he has for other teams, and I don't think he was particularly bad for us - same goes for Conroy. Those are the type of players they are. Whether they are judged a failure by the fans needs to be seen against fans expectations for them, but certainly in the cases of nade and Conroy, they played exactly the way I'd expected them to. In Nade's case, as I wrote above wants to have the ball to long, slows down the build up and is not particularly industrious off the ball either, that's not Murray's fault, that's just the way he is. Murray's issue was in signing players when he didn't really have an idea of how he wanted them to fit in, and Nade's impact was limited for us by that.

I'm not sure it's about 'good enough' in terms of pure ability, but rather in terms of not fitting in with the rest of the team, so not contributing positively, even if they are a good player (though even by that standard, I don't think Conroy going to QoS counts as 'bigger and better'). No doubt that Nade has ability and scored important goals for us, nevertheless he also tended to slow down our build up play, and never struck up a partnership with the other forwards, limiting the number of chances we created last year so it's right for both parties that he move on - certainly I wouldn't have him in place of the Stewart-Vaughan partnership at the time and when Murray tried to shoehorn Nade in there by moving Stewart out wide at Dumfries our attacking play suffered. He'll be a good impact player for Hamilton, but we needed a forward we could use more regularly and who would fit in with the rest of the team better. Likewise Davidson, for all his ability to cover ground wasn't great in terms of position and not at all good at pushing into the final third from midfield, which given the limited players around him meant that our midfield was overall not able to support the attack at all well when he was in there, where he was able to go and use his quite narrow specialities alongside more talented players I'm sure he would and does thrive, but we needed a more complete midfield player.

Check again, he gets everywhere.

I'm down Annan, Elgin, New St Mirren, Tannadice and Rugby Park. Which is shite.

Your fault for not following it sooner then

Nah, headed up with a mate. But yeah, same rules apply, a bit back to the future......

You missed f**k all, I had a chippy pre game that near enough smashed a tooth, batter like concrete.

Yeah, I mind that as well - not popular at that point. Can't believe we didn't score any goals with Wardlaw and Weir up front. Thank f**k we got Smtih in on loan a week or two later... and then Wales.

Managed to make the cup game there back in 2008. Drew 0-0, Davidson got sent off and Campbell blasted in a hell of a penalty into the top corner along with Silvestro, as a former wee Rovers stalwart missing his.

Still surprised a championship club hadn't come in for him....

In fairness, he wasn't dropped the last two seasons, he was injured two years ago vs Morton, and came back into the team when fit last season, and was only dropped - for whatever reason - going into the last 5 games. But yeah, it works out the same, Mcgurn should be first name on the team sheet.

Stewart was fine when paired with someone who actually complemented his own style.

Not sure we really need another centre mid at this point though....

I'd like to think McKinnon would actually watch these guys train and play first before bumping them. Anderson is one of the few guys we've had who can stretch teams these last few years, always good for a wonder goal as well.

Every chance he'll use Wighton in a more advanced role.