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For a left field punt - Noah Chilvers at Ross County - was dynamite prior to a Slattery type injury. Not playing well currently in a terrible terrible team - don't think he will fancy D1 much.

That's probably a given, but if VAR in Scotland can't conclusively prove there was contact on Maswanhise, there can be absolutely no doubt it's not fit for purpose.

I think it is all going to come together for this one and it is going to be the statement win of the season. The jewel in the crown!!!

Hope to see Slattery and Johnny K back for this one. RCC and Thor too. We are capable of winning this, with a wee bit of luck and a focused performance we can leave Ibrox with all 3 points.

He probably holds grudges a lot better than he does a whistle or VAR controls.

I didn't know that but I always had the feeling that he never forgave us for releasing his brother Brian, since the former's "performances" against us almost always seemed inconsistent at best or incompetent/biased at worst. It seems such behaviour is typical in the petty and largely unchallenged world of Scottish football refereeing. Dae ye mind o' Craig Thomson? Dae ye?

Hearts wont win the title, for me its MJC,'s big team, as they will get most of the Var calls in their favour as they always do.

It was a great move that took two defenders completely out of the game, but not finishing it off by scoring was very poor, that was the game and 3 points right there.

With all the talk about the PK and our missed chances we never really gave JT some credit for his move that should have ended in a goal. That was a superb move that left the hearts defender helpless. I think JT could have had a better touch as he ran in on goal but then done well again to fake out the sliding hearts defender. Haven’t watched it back but not sure if a pass to Longello was on or not but JT should still have got it on target. Although he didn’t score that was His best game for a while, much more involved. Looking for more of that after the split along with a few goals.

Aye the phrase tainted title will be bandied about by supporters of the two losers no doubt.

They’ll just say they didn’t have the angle that confirmed it the same as they did with the Fadinger one at Ibrox.

But we all know it will. Hearts fans were delighted to take Saturday's decision, but you can almost guarantee they'll be greetin about VAR before the season's over. Three sides going for the title - it's an accident waiting to happen.

Some interesting comments from Lee Wilkie in today's Dundee Courier. "I would scrap VAR in Scottish football tomorrow. The technology affects the game far too much in a negative way and we saw the very worst of that in Dundee’s seemingly endless game at Kilmarnock. Of course, we want to help referees get really close calls correct but the technology gets involved far too much. And it affects the way players play the game, too. Again, not in a good way. I think players dive even more now than they did before. I’m not talking about blatant dives where there is no contact. I’m talking about situations where the forward feels a hand on the back and hits the deck. They do that knowing the Video Assistant Referee is watching and they might get a penalty out of very little. For me, that’s not what football should be about. It is a technical game but there should still be the physical aspect of battling for the ball with someone else. When VAR reviews a decision, they only look for contact but crucially not whether that contact is enough to constitute a foul. You will see strikers running into the box thinking more about initiating contact with a defender than actually scoring the chance. VAR in Scotland has not had many successes to shout about and Saturday at Rugby Park certainly wasn’t one of them. An eight-minute delay doesn’t help anyone. Spectators don’t want to be hanging about that long and, even though Dundee eventually got the penalty, it didn’t help them either. It doesn’t look good for our game. The SPFL and SFA are probably breathing a sigh of relief that didn’t happen in one of the title-deciding fixtures coming up."

And that in one statement highlights the glass ceiling (pun not intended) many of our own fans put in place often artificially. The guy is saying weekly he wants the players to be the best they can be, exceed their what they assume is their own personal limitations and we’re seeing that played out. But yeah, with this, the bare minimum will suffice …. All I’ve said since my first post on the subject is it could be so much more with little effort or cost. Just my observation.

Ive said that for long enough

Even if we were to get a strong headline fee for someone like JT or Watt, it very rarely lands as a lump sum that can immediately be reinvested. More often than not, these deals are structured over a number of years, with staged payments and add-ons tied to appearances, performance, or team success. So while the “£X million” figure looks healthy on paper, the reality is that only a portion of that is available in the short term. It’s not always as simple as selling a player and having that full amount ready to spend in the same window. Young players are, by definition, not the finished product. Some develop, some plateau, and some fall away entirely. It’s easy to say they should stay, play regularly, and improve, but there’s just as much risk in that path as there is in moving on early. If a better financial offer comes in, especially from a higher level, it’s completely understandable for the player to take it. They’re being asked to secure their future, often on the back of a short window of opportunity. An agent will almost always frame it that way: take the deal, bank the money, and go and test yourself in a better environment, better facilities, potentially higher standards in training, and the chance to develop alongside stronger players. Jake Hastie is probably a good example of how this can play out. At the time, a lot of people felt he left too early. But looking at it now, he secured a four-year deal on wages we couldn’t have matched. When he came back on loan, and in his spells elsewhere, he didn’t really show that he was going to make it at our level. So from his perspective, he maximised his earning potential at the right time. The alternative could easily have been staying, not kicking on, and ending up at a lower level anyway, just without the financial security he got from that move. None of this is to say we shouldn’t want to keep our best young players as long as possible. Of course we should. But the reality is there are financial and career dynamics at play that make these situations far less black and white than they sometimes seem, especially from the players perspective.

There is no incentive to improve no matter how many are involved. Irrespective of how many errors they make or how many times they ignore the Laws, with Collum in charge they are untouchable and decisions justified to the extreme. You just have to watch the farcical monthly review to see the institution in action. Collum has devised his own personal rule book. Quote ' Our stakeholders don't want to see that'. Translation ' We will ignore the Laws (sometimes)'. Possibly one reason why none of his team of experts made the 150 heading to the USA. That speaks volumes. Change will only be possible when leadership is honest and prepared to apply standards. How about instead of an ex referee being in charge, they appoint a former non Scottish player who understands the game and can tell the difference between intent and accidental, the difference between natural and unnatural? Move on from mates covering mates. Better still, just scrap VAR. I am now at the stage where hearing the justification for the ever growing number of errors is more frustrating than the errors themselves.

I dont remember seeing that 100 people applied for the job , but my God they must have really bad if that clown got the job.

The other 40 have the collective power to enforce changes but somehow they seem reluctant to do so.

It does matter, though, because when the pool is small there is no incentive to improve. With a larger pool, there might be some officials who take action to improve so they can replace the clueless refs in the top games.

I said earlier in the season that JT has not convinced me, despite his goals this season. This is one of the reasons.

Too many refs in jobs in which they're never questioned or have to justify their performance - lawyers, accountants, education officers, politicians - so they become uber-petulant when anyone dares to do so. Collum was the prime example of that.

According to the match programme on Saturday the VAR Official was Steven McLean. The same VAR Official from the Aberdeen cup tie. The same referee who put in a shocking performance in the home game v Rangers a week before the cup tie and was loudly booed off at the end. Obviously just a coincidence as I'm sure he holds no grudges.