Rhys McCabe Hype Train

McCabe on record in previous podcasts and interviews in saying he doesn’t have social media.

Remember we are a small fish in a big full time pond. We’ll be the lowest paying full time club in the West I’d imagine, Hamilton included.

Quite pleased with Oviedo’s kit selection this year, as usual from the Adidas “Locker Room” selection of templates (previously miAdidas) I do have a home strip on the way, had to pay €20 postage plus an undoubted import tax after I couldn’t make it to the club shop in Oviedo on my last visit to Asturias.

League One forum for this crowdwanking pish.

Very pleasant surprise. We bossed the game for most parts and I'd be interested to see a possession stat for the game, albeit the only stat that matters is the score. We could/should've been 2-0 up before Thistle scored but when we conceded and then McCabe went off I was fearing the worst. Second half we finally converted the chances. Thoroughly enjoying Aaron Taylor-Sinclair's re-invention as a Championship level ball playing centre half, and I thought that McGregor was man of the match today even though a fair amount of home fans decided he was at fault for the Thistle goal. I can see him being a bit of a gem for us this season but still being the type of Telfer/Jamieson scapegoat figure that our support love to hate.

If there was ever any doubt, we have to sign some players now.

I reckon Thistle will win comfortably.

I don’t think St Johnstone will have been paying huge money, given how their season went I’d think they’d be among the teams with a lower budget in the top flight - but yes certainly more than we would be able to offer.

Aye whoever floated the £750k figure is at it. Fairly sure he’s only on a one year deal anyway, Palace could wait until 31st Dec and get him for nothing - don’t even think we’d be due a development fee either as he’s not been with us long enough.

Strips are produced by football nation & they stick a Joma logo on it. I went to the ground to try a “real” Joma 3rd strip on to get a gauge for sizing and was told it’s totally different to the home and away.

Fed up watching Bairstow now. He takes a half step to his right and takes a comfortable catch… he doesn’t and root has to clutch the ball out from behind him.

If you go to Spain/Baleares/Canaries and drink anything other than Estrella Galicia - and ideally the 1906 version, then you’re doing it very wrong.

Can’t exactly see the Rovers chartering a plane to get to the Canaries, and the price of tickets on Ryanair and hotels during the summer holidays would be a huge financial outlay. There’s no danger this friendly will happen, surely?

As well as being our manager, Rhys McCabe still also fits into our best XI and is our first choice free-kick & penalty taker. His cousin and assistant manager, Callum Fordyce, was also club captain until two weeks ago and remains our best centre back. Sacking McCabe would also hacen Fordyce’s departure, thereby weakening the squad and most likely leading to a dismal relegation. As far as I know both are contracted until the end of the season and therefore neither will be going anywhere. Bit of a duff situation to be in if things do go to shit, but there we go.

Todorov’d.

I honestly don’t know how much full member status would benefit Scotland. Where we are is, yes, a niche in that we are in the top 3-4 associate sides, but I don’t think the funding is available to make the step up (a recent graphic showed that Scotland only had $1million in funding allocated by the ICC) and the remainder is made up of flailing commercial income. Playing in the West, certainly, I also don’t have much faith in the governance from Cricket Scotland, especially outside of the EH postcodes. We have league reconstruction it seems every other year, disciplinary standards vary wildly week in week out, and we only seem to have enough umpires to cover the top league in each region reliably. Surely ducks have to be in a row domestically before progress can be made internationally? I also don’t have any faith that should Scotland go to full member, that any funding increases would trickle down to clubs where improvements to facilities must be an objective.

Thought Hampshire were bad but dearie me.

Even Cricinfo’s coverage of this tournament has been shite. I went to Mannofield to cover a tri-series CWC League 2 with UAE & PNG in 2019 for ESPN and even then I was told I should be doing commentary as well as scoring every ball. This time round it looks like they haven’t got anyone and are relying on the ICC’s ball by ball.

Week 1 - Montrose.

Winning the toss, bowling and getting skelped for 245. Then getting rolled for 90.

Not so sure moisture was the problem, looking at the pictures the pitch looked like a corrugated tin roof.

Today in WDCU news, the 100th Rowan Cup final (showpiece T20 tournament in the West) at Hamilton Crescent was abandoned after 2 overs for player safety. Seems after an over and a half of playing low and slow one popped off a length and rattled the Prestwick opener on the helmet. Bit of a shambles, really, seeing as West have had a number of report of poor pitches against them this season, as well as not having a groundsman in place for the most part of this term. Wonder how they managed to get such a big final? EDIT: Frogbox footage of the offending delivery. https://twitter.com/pwick_cricket/status/1683091591102070786?s=46&t=hjl4J7jANZv_oV0hm7UjTw

This, so much this… albeit will depend on the structure of any deal to see how well we do out of it (would take a loan back to start, sell on’s, appearance bonus…). Also wonder how much Jackie Mc will make out of a deal? I did think that Wotherspoon would be a good shout for us despite the interest from Dunfermline given the links.

Class from the Diamonds. Looking forward to a defeat from Inverness and a losing penalty draw with Bonnyrigg to scupper our chances of progressing, though. A wee Cup run would be class.

Adrian Neill is a big haddy medium pacer. Have seen nothing of him in a Scotland kit to suggest he should still be picking up caps. Albeit have said that about the likes of Ali Evans for years and he still manages to get into squads.