Nick Montgomery was asking for Hibs trouble and has left the club facing the one thing they don't need – Tam McManus

There's a line that should never be crossed when managers and players go to acknowledge the fans after a rotten defeat... it’s about 25 yards from the edge of the pitch!

Fair play to Nick Montgomery for dragging his team to face up to the flak from the visiting supporters who were absolutely bealing after another woeful ending to a game in Dingwall at the weekend. But it was asking for trouble getting so close and personal that they could feel the heat coming off the Hibs fans never mind hear it after somehow letting a 1-0 lead turn into another dismal defeat.

Listen, you can’t win in these situations. If you head straight down the tunnel with your head hanging you’re rightly going to be accused of snubbing the punters who have shelled out to travel long distances. But get too close and you’ll often find yourself told where to go.. which is normally somewhere that rhymes with nae luck.

So of course Montgomery and his players were right to applaud the punters. Maybe just keep a safer distance in future. There’s always the danger someone might be tempted to have a bite back - not that it happened on this occasion - but falling out with the fans is the last thing a club needs when results are poor. Just applaud the fans and get yourself off the park.

To be fair the situation was hardly like Lee Johnson in Andorra after the Inter Escaldes embarrassment where the former manager was seen telling the travelling punters to calm down after watching their side lose to a team of part-timers. I’ve been in the situation many a time myself and actually felt the wrath of another ex-Hibee, Stevie Crawford, when we were team mates at Dunfermline.

We’d lost a third consecutive game, 4-0 at home to Livingston, and I’d gone to shake the