renton

The top end is not what concerns me, I don't mind getting mauled off Dundee, Partick et al, so long as we can take enough points from the teams around us. Even if the general standard remains the same it does not preclude our competitiveness in it, our squad has a decent baseline standard and has a good season playing together and having gelled and we can still strengthen, I myslef am not fully convinced on the merits of guys like Tade but he's going to get a pre season behind him with a more rigourous training regime than he got previously - as he himself has admitted. And the kick off is not saturday, or the one after. The friendlies mean jack shit, as long as the squad is ready by august, that is what matters.

Really? Dunfermline are going into the season with relative unkowns as their centre halves, QoS lost a lot of their established goal scorers in Dobbie and O'connor, Livingston are a mess, Ayr are in the same boat as us. Last season's league was a tight affair with very few points seperating 3rd to 8th, if that were to repeat then there is no reason to believe that Raith could not remain competitive.

Every team has changed to some degree or another, some weaker and some of course stronger. We're facing different personnel and different circumstances from what Morton and RC faced, also, we have our own team and manager with their own philosophy that will either help or hinder us in the season ahead.

Different year, different league, different teams, why try and compare them? The struggle is in trying to quantify the term 'significantly strengthened' from one team to another, therefore it becomes impossible to judge without the benefit of hindsight.

While over on fannytalk one poster seems to have lost the plot and is using the terms 'c'mon McGlynn/board... sign someone we can get excited about....' And he'sdoing it in block capitals. Looks like the panic button just got pressed

I saw Wedderburn a few times last season, when he was partnered with Danny main. Neither looked like anything special, although Main's lack of pace was frightening - it didn't surprise me that he got released. In all honesty I didn't think either of the U-19 centre halves would make it and I'm still very unconvinced that wedderburn will be able to step up. You make him sound like an economical German hatchback, possibly with i-pod compatibility and a sunroof..... I have no idea what to think aobut it if it is Hill, no doubt the Alloa fans would be perplexed, but then again they proably didn't expect us to make a succes of Sloan either. While he would no doubt lack Andrews physical presence when attacking a corner, he seems reasonably solid and no doubt ahving Sparky along side him would help. It's one of those 70% of the talent for 20% of the cost calculations that we have to make....

Hey Dunc, why have you annexed another man's user name?

Of course we have no proven goal scorers 'in this division', even if we had kept Kevin Smith, he'd still have been largely 'unproven' at this level. There is absolutely no way you can say for definite that the players mentioned ' are'nt even that good at going forward' - you and I have no idea exactly how many of those players will react to the first division, basing your prediction on several of their past histories in this division gives only one aspect of the story. While Simmons would seem to me to be the biggest risk in that squad there is a glimmer of a good player there, and if McG can keep him focused we should get more out of him than you lot did. As for Tade, we at the moment have no idea exactly how McG is going to play him, if he is in an out and out striking position, it will be the first time he has played there and thus, you cannot say one way or the other how he will play or how prolific he will be. Also, given that the chances of you having seen either Ferry or Smith are bloody slim, how you can pass comment is beyond me. Our squad is not yet complete, and I'd expect us to lose out on Andrews if Hamilton or Hibs are halfway serious, I still think McG can get a replacement centre half and Mark Campbell is more than solid at the back. I expect us to be scrapping it out, I do not think we will be definitely for the chop, however.

nick one of hers, call it a strtegic redistribution of research materials.

Bloody code monkeys.

Why does she need it like that?

Speciest b*****d

I kinda like the strip to be honest would have preferred white shorts though. I suspect the 'official' unveiling on the site might have been delayed in order to parade a newly signed Marvin Andrews which, day by day, seems more unlikely.....

How do you know? squad size is not a direct relation to the performance on the night. it wil be related to our average performance over the season, but to say that we are destined to lose because we don't have a full squad in place is ridiculous. We could have a decent chance of winning with the team we have. Playing with three strikers is not a problem and not uncommon either. Should Andrews sign on we will have more probable cover for centre half positions than the Pars will. I agree that full back cover is a problem, but Wilson's reliability has covered the fact that we have had little right back cover since Calderon's days anyway. My issue was with the notion of turning gregory tade into a striker, I have since made peace with that notion and will grant him the opportunity to prove me wrong before letting my blood pressure rise. The squad is small, but not incomparable to others in this division. Many are unprovena t this level but that is not uncommon in a promoted team, they are going to get their chance to play, uncommonly we finally hav ethe numbers in midfield and I'd suggest that mor ethan one could be an emergency left back or auxilliary striker.

Well, that's not massively promising to be honest. Our strikers this year are going to be Weir, Tade and A.N.Other.... plus cameo appearences from Gringo Bryce and Tam Graham. Unless A.N.Other is capable of the superhuman feats of Smith last year, I can see us struggling up front, and so we really need Andrews to sign as we can't afford to be weak up front and at the back. Still, with the amount of friendlies we are playing and with the two cup games beofre the league start they should be fit enogh I suppose.

to be fair, their squad would still be competitive with Raith and Ayr, there is no reason to believe that they could not make the immediate step back up, if it came down to it. There is less at stake with the third possibly having to run it with nine clubs, since their division obivously has a less complicated system of changing teams because of the lack of relegation.

I wondered if they were moving stuff from the big base at Kirkliston. You'd think that with commanders in afghanistan screaming at the top of their lungs for more helicopters that perhaps the royal highland show might have to do without them, it beggars belief it that's the case

The last couple of days has seen helicopters flying repeatedly over my office out at the Heriot Watt campus. It's slightly off putting. It's not small choppers either, it's the big RAF twin rotor chinooks, so they make a hell of a racket. God knows what is going on....

yup, go one better and do nuclear engineering - building a reactor is mostly plumbing after all.....

Curiously one of the main applications of my work is in the construction of micro channels for fluid flow, so in a sense I guess I am

It's the focus of my PHd material....

I think you can do both, I genuinly enjoy all aspects of electronics (albeit my exposure to pure electronics is more limited these days) but anyone that knows me will tell you I enjoy being pissed watching football more

Yes, but I'm stuck in an office trying to characterise a pyhsical model for fluid dynamics under a heterogeneous electric field. Arguing with him is light relief by comparison.

However, their capacity to earn greater money over succesive years is very high, so what's the point? For some it's not about the money, some genuinly have a love of writing program code and want to do it for a living. There is clearly still a market for it (even if the money isn't great). They still contribute hugely to the country's economy so what could possibly be your problem? Or would you like them to retrain as pipefitters and slowley start to squeeze your own wage structure.