MJC

Happy enough with that team and delighted to see Watt back. Don’t see us winning though unfortunately.

It was you’re right, my mistake. The same point stands for him though, ie. worse than Stevie Woods but we never saw him again after that game.

We have. But the length of time Woods was here sways it for me. Nine years, never first choice, kept turning up like a bad penny and making the same errors time and again. An example of much worse would be Jordan Archer. But he made only a handful of appearances with the last being an absolutely horrific display against Accies. After which he left and was never seen or heard of again. With Woods he would pop up again and again after the first choice goalkeeper left or was out injured and would remind the support just how much of a bombscare he truly was. Had he established himself as our undisputed first choice goalkeeper and been solid and reliable for the remainder of his time with us then the howler against Rangers in 1998 would have been largely overlooked as one of those unfortunate isolated moments, similar to the aforementioned Tommy Coyne miss. But that’s now how it panned out with us and Stevie Woods. What I would say for him though is that he found his ‘calling’ or his ‘forte’ when he moved into coaching. Some things are just meant to work out a certain way and for Stevie Woods it was clearly coaching as he has shown for many years now that that is what he is clearly best at. He’s worked with and coached top goalkeepers like Craig Gordon, Fraser Forster, Joe Hart and Kasper Schmeichel. And they all speak highly of him as a coach.

The top goalkeeper coach in the country. He wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had at Celtic if he wasn’t pretty decent at coaching. But sometimes those who are great coaches weren’t the greatest players and Stevie Woods falls into that category. He was here for the best part of a decade under numerous managers yet never made the No.1 spot his own. He continually made the same unforced errors like getting beat at his near post, coming for cross balls and completely missing them and his dreadful judgement and kicking led to various cheap goals conceded. The one against Rangers was the most high profile one but it was just another in a long, long line of clangers as he had plenty before it and would go on to make plenty more after it. And that is why Stevie Woods is right up there on the lists of many Motherwell fans worst ever goalkeeper.

Steven McLean the referee for this one and John Beaton on VAR. A pre-made excuse for the dribbling dafties and conspiracy theorists. ”Brother Beaton would never have given that decision if it was up the other end” etc

I’ll never forgive Woods for that Rangers mistake. It was ridiculous and unavoidable at so many levels.

It’s easy to see why Craigan was part of the team that had our worst run against Rangers with that attitude. “We used to go to Ibrox scared”? Come on to f@@k. Whatever happens on Wednesday night there is no way that JBA will allow any of the players to go into the game with that nonsensical attitude.

Seeing the draw only reinforces my belief that St.Mirren will go all the way. One of the OF won’t be in the Semis, Hearts and Hibs are already gone, ourselves or Aberdeen won’t be there and they have a perfect draw which they will almost certainly win, so that’s them in the Semis Finals. As for us, if we get past Aberdeen then that’s a tough one. We’ve fallen to Championship sides away from home twice in the past few years and Dunfermline will rightly fancy themselves in that tie with a big home crowd and Neil Lennon knows how to win big games. I think it’ll be academic anyway as I don’t think we’ll beat Aberdeen.

That’s nice to know dear. But I care. Okay? Artichoke. Cholmondeley. Pedigree CHUM. I care.

Each to their own, but for me it’s bad enough that St.Mirren have won the league cup this season without them adding the Scottish Cup to that and getting a double. It’s annoying enough that we’ve gone 35 years without a major trophy without St.Mirren winning three in the last 13 years and with the manager who led us to two finals in the same season but failed to lay a glove on the opponents in both games.

Which was probably correct given the amount of stoppages within the stoppage time.

So what’s your point then?

You do know that it’s a ‘minimum’ of time added on don’t you? That means that extra seconds/minutes are added on when the ball goes out of play or substitutions are made. Hence longer stoppage time than the initial minimum allocated time.

I don’t know. Celtic don’t look like getting back in this game, Hearts and Hibs are already out, you wouldn’t back Rangers to go all the way given their tendency to choke in domestic games. And us? I don’t see us beating Aberdeen and I certainly don’t see them winning it two years in a row. Sometimes being a good ‘Cup team’ is enough to get you over the line and St.Mirren have already shown that they are a good Cup team this season.

I’m calling this right now. St.Mirren are going to win the Scottish Cup and complete the double this season.

No arguments with that. VAR is an absolute scourge on football.

We’re long overdue a win at home against Rangers. We’ve beaten them twice away in the last two seasons but a win at Fir Park in front of the home fans would be that bit more special I think. A draw is the most likely result here but you just hope that we might be able to get the win. Another 1-1 with us bemoaning missed chances I reckon.

I just had a quick look on YouTube at the penalty decision you mention involving Aberdeen and Dundee Utd v Rangers. Both, in my opinion, are correctly awarded. And I have already said in this thread that Fadinger should have been given a penalty at Ibrox and I don’t know why it wasn’t given. Now, the point you mention about the home crowd at Ibrox helping to bring about these inconsistencies is very valid. The same could be said of any ground with a large and partisan crowd all shouting for a call at one time. Referees are only human after all. What I would say though is, to bring it back to the point I made about Rangers opponents not receiving a red card domestically for almost two years. The same referee you mention, did in fact red card a Rangers player at Ibrox in a game against St.Johnstone in October of 2024. And let me make this clear, I only know this after a check on soccerbase. I didn’t see this incident and I have no recollection of it. But on that occasion David Dickinson obviously didn’t allow the Ibrox crowd to influence his thinking.

Rangers were also unfortunate to have a goal at ruled out against Hearts at Ibrox when only 0-1 down. They also had a goal harshly ruled out against Aberdeen at Pittodrie. I actually thought we were very unfortunate to have Hendry’s goal against Hearts at Fir Park ruled out for offside. And Celtic should already have been down to ten at Tynecastle when their new signing, the striker, literally wrestled the Hearts player to the ground right in front of the referee. Again had either of the two above gone in Rangers favour then a lot more would have been made of it.

That’s what I mean when I mentioned the inconsistencies with decisions. We see it week in week out with different referees giving a particular decision one week and a different referee gives the opposite decision the next week. The same applies to VAR. How many times on this forum alone on match threads has decisions been questioned where similar incidents with other games have resulted in a different decision? You could literally scroll through the forum and select any given match thread and find one.

Right, so Hearts getting a goal at Ibrox that shouldn’t have stood wasn’t a key decision that would have impacted the result? And then there was Celtic’s ridiculous penalty award against Killie at Rugby Park which even Willie Collum admitted was wrong. That didn’t impact the result?

The standard response when you’ve got no argument against the facts provided.

Yes it was. And Trusty’s was a red card.

No, not “what about Celtic”. That’s an utterly pathetic response to highlighting some facts which question a claim that one team gets all the decisions and is part of the reason why Celtic have the media and everyone else dancing to their tune over this. Celtic went over 80 domestic matches without a red card. That is a statement of fact and one which is perfectly reasonable to point to when it is being claimed that another club benefits more than most or that it’s being going on for decades as you say. And just to highlight another small example. In our recent game against Celtic Liam Scales who was on a yellow card was able to commit several fouls without seeing a second yellow and then a red. But I don’t remember too many people bubbling about that or much in the way of any mention of it in the media. Indeed the last time a Celtic player was red carded at Fir Park was Tom Boyd in the early 1990s. I’m not saying it’s deliberate cheating, but there is definitely one club in this country who holds a massive sway over the match officials. And that club isn’t Rangers. It’s more down to fear of repercussion more than anything else. Celtic are the club after all who caused a refereeing strike. If highlighting that makes me a Rangers apologist or whatever to you and others then do you know what, so be it. I prefer to see it as looking at this objectively and giving an opinion based on that.

Ahh drum pounding. A very mature and measured response. I’m simply stating some facts and some home truths. That Killie’s red card last night was the first time a domestic opponent of Rangers has been sent off since May 2024. Almost two years. And at the same time Celtic went over 80 domestic matches without receiving a red card. And lo and behold when both of those runs are finally ended all hell breaks loose and the conspiracy theorists come crawling out the woodwork.