Pool Q

Ikpeazu linked with the OF, I’d forgotten we were playing Rangers tomorrow night.

Compliance Officer will be busy this week. Then again, probably not.

I only ever see McKenna against us or for Scotland. Lets just say I can only assume he plays a lot better against everyone else. Souttar has genuine potential as a ball playing centre back, but also has a tendency to switch off or play a lose pass once or twice a game. Won't get away with that if he does move on to play against better sides at a higher level.

1-0 about right at HT at Tynecastle yesterday. Aberdeen started a bit better, while Hearts were rotten. Second half we played a lot better, and well worth the win in the end. Ikpeazu missed an absolute sitter, and a couple of decent penalty shouts. Beaton was hopeless, even by the low standards we have come to expect.

Wasn’t imagining it, this place was actually interesting once upon a time.

Backwards, sideways, hoof. Repeat. Levein’s team talks must be truly inspirational.

Back in Edinburgh last night, Wednesday night at Tynecastle sounds lively. The halfwits in both sets of the support having a fun time singing songs they only vaguely understand at each other; made up stories from folk pretending to have been at the game; whataboutery and outrage from both sides. All that shite aside, it sounds like it was actually a half-decent game.

It was a private trip to say goodbye to old teammates. He’s a grown man with a lot of money. Why shouldn’t he be organising it himself?

Good precedent.

Can’t be many who have got the Celtic job on the back of taking a team to 8th in the Scottish Premiership.

I’m in London through work so will sadly miss the festivities tomorrow evening. Which is fine by me tbh.

Ad canem.

‘Grass’ is a term used by criminals and morons to protect criminals and morons.

Absolutely deserved at least a point. Hearts were rotten, but take nothing away from St Mirren. Tansey should have had a straight red for his tackle on Dikamona mind.

It is a red card to be fair, I was wrong with my earlier comment on that.

Comparable, in terms of the quality of the refereeing, to the penalty against Haring in St Johnstone game in Perth earlier this season. It’s long since moved into the territory of the simply laughable now.

Good game at Fir Park today. Thought Hearts just about deserved something, but keeper (who otherwise had a good game) gifted the points. ‘Well have unearthed a few good young players. Happily pay to watch that every week.

Truthfully didn't really notice that at the ground and haven't seen highlights. I didn't come away from the ground thinking that the ref had played a major role in shaping the result. Scotland made far too many basic errors, the second half performance was pretty poor. Those players can do a lot better than that.

French refs tend to play long advantage. It felt like he called a couple early for Scotland as soon as we crossed the gain line, but let Ireland go well beyond it , through several phases, before going back to an earlier infringement. Over and above that I felt he went with Ireland on countless 50/50s. When a scrum collapsed he pinged us every time. It is a question of ref management, Ireland have been great at it for years. Best was in Pointe's ear at every breakdown, often with no Scot in sight. Not for the first time after Laidlaw went off there were occasions when the ref was looking for the Scotland captain, and it wasn't clear who it was. In the professional era these are basics. This is easily fixable stuff. That said, the errors cost us the game. Jones knock on from a restart gave them the position for their first try, and then their was a clueless feck up between Seymour and Maitland. Handling errors in the second half came close to the comical.

Started well, and looked good in the first half when game was open, their gifted try aside. They tightened it up in the second half, and the constant errors from Scotland meant Ireland didn't actually have to do very much to secure a fairly comfortable win in the end.

My post was from about a week ago. What are you actually talking about you pish soaked old jakie?

Thankfully the squad looks stronger overall this week to take on what is likely to be a very fired up Ireland. We faded badly last week when we started to go to the bench. Kinghorn obviously unlucky to be dropped, but having the likes of him, Horne, Brown, Toolis and Harley on the bench looks a lot better.

In the game against Rangers in December Morelos spent the whole game jumping into Berra when high balls were lumped forward by MacGregor. Wasn’t looking at the ball, just jumping into the defender. I’ve genuinely never seen anything like it, he could (and should) have been booked for persistent fouling by about 20 minutes into the game, and then off by HT. Even the BBC mentioned it. Ref did fuck all, apart from comment to a Hearts player that Morelos was ‘a bit silly sometimes.’ Morelos then scored the winning goal from an offside position. Levein complained afterwards, and received a touch line ban for his troubles, despite it being almost word for word identical to a comment made by Lennon for which their was no action taken. On social media fans of other clubs said Levein was whingeing. In many ways, our clubs and fans get the refs they deserve.

The accepted narrative in the media (and elsewhere) is that Lennon is brilliant, while Dempsey and Petrie are fuds.Perhaps. Then again I feel they may be able to identify a manager that (given the same budget) can do a better job than leading a team to 8th in the Scottish Premiership, winning 7 of 23 games played.