The Master

Not going to happen. There’s no way we’re beating Peterhead.

Arbroath v Hibs for definite. It's a question of what the other one will be. St Mirren v Kelty is an interesting one. Normally I'd say that the lower league team being away makes it less attractive, but plenty of teams have proved that wrong in recent seasons by making the games much closer than they should be - Cove and Morton in the last round alone to name but two. If the BBC don't go for that, then Motherwell v Aberdeen sticks out.

He left the BBC to join Setanta at the end of the 2003/04 season. When that went south he reappeared as a freelancer, including presenting STV's Champions League coverage for a season. Eventually he found his way back to the BBC, primarily as Dougie Donnelly's replacement as main presenter of Sportscene. From there he found his way back into the BBC commentary box, initially only on the radio but now on TV as well. Then of course he landed the Scotland commentary gig for network BBC at the Euros. Of course, he also works for BT and Premier when they have more than one OF game to show in a day.

I’ll probably go to this. Peterhead isn’t as far away as people make out, being closer than a trip to Morton. I guess the poor roads north of Aberdeen make it seem like more of a trek.

A single TV camera and lens can cost over £100k. They won’t be leaving them at Gayfield for a week. They’ll keep any temporary gantries but that’s about it.

Sensational finish.

That’s not unique to Sportscene. In general, highlights programmes only put a score up on extended edits with commentary. Games in roundups get nothing but a caption with the full time score.

It’s only shite because it’s the same shite officials making the calls. In principle, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work well.

The confusion probably stems from the 2014/15 fourth round being played before Christmas. St Johnstone beat Ross County 2-1 in November, before going on to lose 2-0 to Queen of the South in February.

It's also unlikely to be "talked about for years". Cleary Sevco are the favourites, and if they do win then it'll all be forgotten by the end of the weekend. Only if Annan do pull off a shock will it get added to the pile of games that are occasionally wheeled out as examples of "the magic of the Cup". That's the closest it'll come to "talked about for years".

Dick Campbell's transition into Frank Butcher is almost complete.

I thought the Pixelot camera on the live stream was bad. At least that has the excuse of being very new AI-based technology. It's fairly obvious that a lot of the single-camera games have camera operators that don't usually cover football. They're probably more used to capturing stuff for news reports.

To be fair, those roundups are how it's been done for as long as I can remember both sides of the border. There's not much you can do highlights-wise with only one or two cameras. Essentially, they need to decide in advance which games to commit resources and commentators to for extended highlights. That will always include whatever games Premier show. That I agree with. I'm pretty sure everyone who wants to see the goals from Auchinleck v Hearts has done so already.

I can't see Rugby Park on TV without flashbacks to being a nervous wreck watching the play-off 2nd leg.

I think the word "former" was in there. He looks ancient for someone in their mid-50s.