Raith Morton: let's be having you!

[grumswall]

Morton are clearly a physical team so it's baffling their fans take such offence to it. We certainly mix it up with them when we're playing them, as the game dictates though. 

Draw was a fair result. Can't think of either keeper making a save of note and it's a good point for both teams all things considered. 

We should have had a pen in the first half but it happens. 

[Brashy's Boots]

27 minutes ago, MarkoRaj said:

Strange to think back to the previous game at Cappielow where we looked like a bad league 2 team and made Raith look like 1970 Brazil

Some turnaround in a few short months

"Turnaround"?

Are you suggesting Morton looked like Brazil tonight, and Raith like a bad league 2 team?

Shurely some mishtake....

[FitbaSupporter]

Forgettable game. Amazed that no one was sent off really. Clean sheet and United defeat made it a good night. Does show that United aren’t going to canter to the title, so we may as well have a right good go. Hopefully beat Arbroath Friday to put a bit of pressure on them. 

[RaithRyan]

We were poor tonight in all honesty and probably is a no bad point in the end. 

Morton are a big and physical side and play to their strengths. The long throws are an absolute weapon, and with the likes of Muirhead they are always going to have a threat. Thought our back line defended really well, considering set plays are our Achilles heel - and Strapps throw ins are just like a corner. 
 

Apparently Andy Millen and John Potter were at one another, rather heatedly at the top of the stairs as folk were exiting - one can only assume it’s regarding Ross’ exclusion from the squad. 
 

Fair play to the Morton support on the night who travelled up - hopefully you can take some points off United at Cappielow next week. 

 

[Chicken Soup]

Not sure a team with Strapp, Power, Gillespie, Blues, Quitongo, Crawford and Garrity among the 13 players featuring can accurately be described as “big”. 
 

Great point and yet another clean sheet, brilliant achievement to get to 16 unbeaten in such a difficult fixture, even more so with the injuries and fitness issues.

[grumswall]

2 minutes ago, Chicken Soup said:

Not sure a team with Strapp, Power, Gillespie, Blues, Quitongo, Crawford and Garrity among the 13 players featuring can accurately be described as “big”. 
 

Great point and yet another clean sheet, brilliant achievement to get to 16 unbeaten in such a difficult fixture, even more so with the injuries and fitness issues.

Not sure why ton fans take such offence to things after 16 games unbeaten either tbh. Certainly seem a precious bunch with that sort of thing. 

[GiGi]

We're physical enough but not especially big. We're just hyper pressing and fit enough to keep in teams' faces. But big and physical are just lazy words that don't really describe things we do best. Happy to help.

Stuffy game, with us missing Oakley I was a bit worried how we'd carry territory in the Raith half but we were actually decent. I'd have taken a point when I saw the team and it's good enough for both teams.

[port-ton]

9 minutes ago, grumswall said:

Not sure why ton fans take such offence to things after 16 games unbeaten either tbh. Certainly seem a precious bunch with that sort of thing. 

Probably because we have to watch just about every other team in the league play eye-bleedingly bad football and they have the nerve to act like we are playing a different sport from them. Raith lumped balls to Hamilton for the majority of the game yet I'm sure Murray will make his usual wee snidey comment about us in his post match interview. 

Our reputation has definitely helped create the siege mentality amongst the manager and squad that has allowed us to go on our 16 game unbeaten run so I'm not complaining at all. 

[CALDERON]

Murray and Imrie were at each other as soon as the teams came out.

It was a scrappy game, both teams gave as good as they got and in the end a draw was fair.

Shit spectacle, but an excellent point given results elsewhere.  Watson has made a massive difference defensively.

Happy with that.

[Cowshed]

36 minutes ago, grumswall said:

Not sure why ton fans take such offence to things after 16 games unbeaten either tbh. Certainly seem a precious bunch with that sort of thing. 

Cause there’s bums lit this kicking about without a scooby & clearly can’t accept big bad hammer throwing Rugby playing Morton took a point at Starks 

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, grumswall said:

Not sure why ton fans take such offence to things after 16 games unbeaten either tbh. Certainly seem a precious bunch with that sort of thing. 

It's not so much taking offence as bafflement that people are seeing things based on a preconceived notion of what they expect from a team rather than looking at what's actually happened in front of them.

If there was a big weakness in the Morton team tonight it was a lack of height in Oakley's absence and having no credible option to go direct as a result, leading to us spending a lot of time knocking it about tidily in our own half but not having anyone to aim at if we wanted to mix it up and go long when Raith successfully shut off passes on the deck. If Power couldn't buy himself room to spread it around we eventually had no option but full backs dinking it down the line in the hope it would hit wingers feet or we could play off throw-ins when those balls were intercepted. Whenever we went route one it was effortlessly dealt with by the Raith defence all night, because we have precisely one attacking player in the whole squad who ticks the boxes of "big and physical" like Raith have with Hamilton and Rudden, and with Oakley out there was simply no target man to aim at.

Robbie Muirhead is tall but about as far removed from being a physical target man as any attacker you'll find and will rarely win a header with his back to goal. Whip crosses into the box for him to attack and he can be dangerous with his head, but outside the box you need to get the ball to his feet or you can forget it. Quitongo is well built and will happily get into a physical tussle with defenders, but he's also small and is probably in single figures for headers won in his whole career. Crawford and Blues have no aerial presence whatsoever.

The aerial presence we had tonight began and ended with the centre backs, which fair enough made us a big threat at set-pieces and both Baird and O'Connor were more than happy to mix it up in the air defensively, with O'Connor also getting himself a stupid booking having a needless dig, but Raith had more height in their team than Morton did tonight.

While no Morton fan disputes our physicality it's as if fans of other clubs don't know what that means, they hear "physical" and "horrible to play against" so assume "team of 6'5 mountains whose whole gameplan is Brian Graham levels of flailing elbows". Strapp is more than happy to fly into tackles and get in physical contests with players far bigger than he is, Power is a total shithouse who has spent his whole career being willing to leave one on on opponents (although from the away end it looked like that Vaughan incident tonight had no contact whatsoever), didn't play tonight obviously but Broadfoot is an even bigger shithouse, the high energy pressing game with players never stopping the running with Crawford, Blues and others tearing after the opposition defence snapping around their ankles to nick the ball both unsettles teams and leads to lots of niggly fouls, causing stop start games. They'll play for set-pieces, slow the game down and get in your face.

Those things make us horrible to play against and make physical an entirely fair description, but I've seen a Morton team crammed with giants whose gameplan was entirely to get the ball in the air and prevail at head tennis because their height meant it would work more often than not - this team is a million miles away from that, because there simply aren't enough tall players in the squad to do it. Physical and big are not the same thing.

[mrpaddyx]

The highlights are out for this one. Predictably not very long at 5:21 with the teams coming out taking up the first 45 seconds!

[Halbeath Raith Rover]

What was that home made top hat all about ? 

A guy game up stair 4 of the South not long after ko and sat down wearing a top hat covered in newspaper clippings about Morton ?

Kept it on for the full game too. Bizzare ! 

[Ferguson]

Watching the 2 dugouts go at each other for 90 minutes was by far the most entertaining part of the game.

As far as big, bad, physical Morton go I don't think we played any more hoofball than Raith did last night, but that's a discussion I'm sick of having now. A good point earned and onto Saturday.

[Double Jack D]

In terms of quality it was a shite game, but it was weirdly entertaining and could've gone either way. Both teams happy with a point and I think that showed in the last 10 mins.

Easy to see how Morton have gone 16 unbeaten, a very good, organised side who battle for everything. I think we gave as good as we got in that sense though. The battle was never really won by either team and they both looked exhausted at the end. Whilst not an "advert" for Championship football, very much a Championship game.

On the odd moment that football did break out I thought we looked slightly better and more likely but that didn't happen very often and certainly nowhere near enough to say we deserved to win.

Think the ref dealt with the game pretty well and managed to keep a lid on a game that started off with the potential for a couple of red cards. Did he get every yellow right? Probably not, but I think overall he managed a difficult game well.

MoM for me would be either of our centre halves. Didn't miss a thing all night and a very rare clean sheet. More of them will see us in with a great chance of winning this title.

Brucey bonus at Tannadice too, so a good night overall. 

[Double Jack D]

Oh, and forgot to add, over 4100 for a Tuesday night game is incredible. Would've been less than 1500 last season.

Good Morton Support too.

[Heid_The_Baw]

That was brutal.  Trying to play flair players against a bunch of thugs is never going to work.  Should have had Matthews on to shore the back 4 and let Broonie get forward to support Stanton.  That would have tightened the usual acres of space left to the opposition in midfield.

Hamilton played a good game drawing their defenders into fouls and yellies.  

Stats show we were toothless and had 3 shots, 1 on target to Mortons 11.  They had 60% possesion too.
Imrie got them playing like a team full of Imries.  Dirty bordering on bullying.  Still, it works for them so fair dos.

 

 

[Scosha]

10 minutes ago, Heid_The_Baw said:

That was brutal.  Trying to play flair players against a bunch of thugs is never going to work.  Should have had Matthews on to shore the back 4 and let Broonie get forward to support Stanton.  That would have tightened the usual acres of space left to the opposition in midfield.

Hamilton played a good game drawing their defenders into fouls and yellies.  

Stats show we were toothless and had 3 shots, 1 on target to Mortons 11.  They had 60% possesion too.
Imrie got them playing like a team full of Imries.  Dirty bordering on bullying.  Still, it works for them so fair dos.

 

 

 

[Double Jack D]

11 minutes ago, Scosha said:

 

Love it.

[Double Jack D]

Just watched the highlights there. Safe to say the penalty decisions have evened themselves out.

Other than that, well done to Raith TV for getting 5 mins worth of footage.