Scotland: Trophy Tilt

"Scotland win trophy."

You don't hear that often.

There is a chance you will tonight though.

And perhaps we could even keep the Carling Nations Cup in perpetuity.

Friday night's attendance for the Wales v Northern Ireland game was 529. That leaves the total attendance for the tournament's five games so far hovering around the 60,000 mark. Or some 5500 fewer people than could cram into the same stadium for a Jedward concert.

It remains to be seen if the Tartan Army have decided to fling a deafie to Craig Levein's plea for a 10,000 strong invasion this evening.

Whatever the attendance tonight it seems that this tournament requires some major modifications if it is to be held again.

For now though we can concentrate on the game. The title play off between Scotland and their hosts, the Republic of Ireland.

Craig Levein has announced him team:

McGregor, Whittaker, Hanley, Berra, Bardsley, Naismith, Robson, Brown, Adam, Forrest, Miller

Gary Caldwell, Stephen Crainey, James Morrison and Ross McCormack drop out of the team that so underwhelmed in the first half against Wales before recovering to post a reasonably comfortable 3-1 win.

A big night this evening for Grant Hanley. Caldwell's injury gives him a start in a central defence that has often caused concern. A first international start after only ten or so appearances for Blackburn.

Circumstance given him his opportunity, we can only hope he grabs it.

A breakthrough night in store for James Forrest as well. A first start and a first cap on the back of his successful season with Celtic.

Together Forrest and Hanley offer an injection of youth that Levein shied from against Wales. That might have been forced on him. But surely the only test of the manager's apparent optimism in the future is if players like Hanley and Forrest can be brought into the team and not look out of the place.

Elsewhere the team has a reasonably familiar look. The reappearance of the reliably resilient Barry Robson shows that Levein is far from ready to sacrifice Scotland's work ethic.

It's another new look midfield that will be charged with giving Charlie Adam the platform to dictate the game and giving Kenny Miller the service and support he needs in attack.

We've not actually played the Republic of Ireland since 2003. That game resulted in a 2-0 defeat as the Irish joined the long list of countries that proved too strong for a Berti Vogts Scotland squad.

It would be nice to think that we could despatch this season with a win. And a trophy.

Certainly tonight matches the two best teams on show.

We have to concede that we're not measuring ourselves against top quality opposition. But it means there will be less room for the periods of poor play that pockmarked the win against of Wales.

Meaningless and pointless. Perhaps. But bigger tests lie ahead and the benefits of having the squad together and in harmony might be important further down the line. The boost of having the squad together and winning might be even greater.

Certainly on a purely footballing level the tournament wouldn't seem to be doing us any great harm.

If we could win the blooming thing it might actually do us some good.

Hamilton v Celtic: Another Refereeing Stramash

Jings, crivvens, help ma boab. Oor Wullie's been at it again.

Collum that is.

Scotland's most famous religious education teacher inspired yet another biblical fury in Neil Lennon at New Douglas Park last night.

Three red cards, one penalty awarded and another turned down, an offside goal allowed for Hamilton, a goal for Celtic disallowed. This was a 1-1 draw with attitude.

Big calls all night. Sympathy with the referee for the red cards for James Forrest and Jim McCallister. Watching the highlights of the game made me wince when I saw the challenges going in. Late challenges both. The ref only gets one look and I think Collum got both calls right.

I've seen a lot of these sliding, late challenges lately. Seems to me players are asking for trouble.

And, yes, sometimes players do "get away with it." Doesn't make it right.

Martin Canning was offside for Hamilton's goal and his run in front of Fraser Foster meant he was interfering with play. Collum could probably not tell that from his position and his assistant seemed to be standing on the wrong side of the line of players in the box rather than in line with them. Maybe this is the norm for free kicks but it meant his view of Canning was impeded.

The penalty Celtic got was right and the red card that followed for Simon Mensing was justified. Celtic's disallowed goal was the right call by the assistant, the ball going out of play from the corner. On that occasion the assistant was in line with the goal line, perfectly placed to see the ball.

Which leaves us with two things to ponder. Should Celtic have had another penalty? I know not, as I've not seen it and it is not included on the BBC website package.

The second issue: Hamilton are bottom of the league and haven't won at home all season, Celtic are top of the league and were looking to open up a seven point gap on Rangers. Collum had a difficult evening. But Celtic's continual struggles in games like this point to problems far closer to home than a concerted campaign of action against them. Neil Lennon is seeing refereeing incompetence every week? Yes he is, we all are, whoever we manage, play for or support. But he's also seeing incompetence from his team far too often. And that buck stops with him, nobody else.

> Celtic are to appeal the James Forrest red card. More appeals than Blue Peter.

We'll Meet Again

Hibs v Celtic on Saturday. Fourth official: Mr William Collum. Maybe it will give him and Neil Lennon a chance to put their heads together and sort out their differences. Or, you know, knock each other out.

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