HibeeJibee Posted July 5, 2018 Share Posted July 5, 2018 Couple of seasons ago the SFA dumped the clubs outwith SPFL/HL/LL into the preliminary rounds, so everyone now begins at that stage. There is an uncommonly large EOSL entry this season although no doubt it will increase in years to come.Tynecastle and Bonnyrigg definitely enter in Preliminary R1 due on Saturday 11th August... They qualified as winners of the South & East of Scotland Cup-Winners' Shield and the East Junior Superleague respectively.Hawick, LTHV, Preston, Coldstream, Burntisland and Linlithgow might enter in PR1 or perhaps in PR2 due on Saturday 1st September... Another oddity the SFA started a couple of seasons ago is that, for this round only, the clubs joining at the next round are decided randomly instead of by league finishing position. (Had it been the latter Hawick, LTHV and Preston would definitely have started in PR2 with Threave and St Cuthbert). Also definitely entering in PR1 are Auchinleck, Beith and amateur side Shortlees. Also with a 9 / 14 chance of entering in PR1, and otherwise PR2, are 4 SOSL clubs - Threave, St Cuthbert, Newton Stewart and Wigtown - plus the usual miscellaneous smattering of Golspie, Banks o'Dee, Girvan and Glasgow Uni. Draw apparently between Monday 16th + Friday 20th July. Bonnyrigg, LTHV and Linlithgow will no doubt fancy their chances against anyone... but would prefer to avoid each other, Auchinleck or Beith. Hawick and Preston will probably be looking for a favourable matchup with one of South or miscellaneous teams. Coldstream and Burntisland haven't an enviable record in recent times but would fancy their chances with most of the South sides, Golspie, or Glasgow Uni. Contrary to last season hopefully most don't draw each other. Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eednud Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 49 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said: Draw apparently between Monday 16th + Friday 20th July. Thoughts? The spread of dates is unbelievable but typical SFA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jambo'ness Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 6 hours ago, Eednud said: The spread of dates is unbelievable but typical SFA. Maybe due to the large amount of EoSL clubs in the hat, they think it's going to take 5 days to complete the draw! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sponsorsladdie Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 Pretty sure that Linlithgow go into the 2nd preliminary round due to being licensed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Rose Posted July 6, 2018 Share Posted July 6, 2018 4th round minimum for the big rose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 6, 2018 Author Share Posted July 6, 2018 42 minutes ago, sponsorsladdie said: Pretty sure that Linlithgow go into the 2nd preliminary round due to being licensed Not so. There are 14 licensed clubs - but fully 9 of them will be randomly drawn to enter in PR1 (alongside 5 qualifiers), with the remaining 5 entering in PR2. This is as there are only 6 places in R1 for clubs progressing from the preliminaries... so 7 clubs must be eliminated in PR1, then 6 more in PR2. Basically you've 64% chance of starting PR1 and 36% of starting PR2. As I say you should count yourself lucky there's a 36% of randomly avoiding PR1. Were it like every other stage of the cup, with entry by finishing position in the league pyramid, you'd 100% be PR1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stanley Posted July 7, 2018 Share Posted July 7, 2018 The way they do the rounds now are a mess. Needs to be sorted in the future. The preliminary rounds are far too random and the clubs outwith the HL/LL are penalised too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimmo's Notes Posted July 7, 2018 Share Posted July 7, 2018 Should have an "all in" draw. By the time Shire enter, half the exotic trips are gone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 7, 2018 Author Share Posted July 7, 2018 2 hours ago, stanley said: The way they do the rounds now are a mess. Needs to be sorted in the future. The preliminary rounds are far too random and the clubs outwith the HL/LL are penalised too much. They'll have to do something as it's almost at the point of collapsing under its own weight anyway. You can accommodate a maximum of 24 in the preliminaries (i.e. if you made everyone enter PR1). There are currently 14 licensed members + upto 8 qualifiers = 22. More than 2 clubs want to join/get licensed/etc. When they reorganised the cup in 2007 there were only 36 members outside SPL & SFL and only 6 qualifier routes (plus this was before Lowland began so East & South were usually won by members). There weren't actually enough clubs to fully fit the format so top 4 Championship clubs got byes to R4, top 2 Highland and champions of East & South got byes to R2. Despite this in the first season there was still usually a single random bye in R1. However over the last 5yrs or so the number of members has gradually increased due to senior clubs like LTHV meeting the criteria, clubs joining the pyramid and so on - plus the Amateur Cup and South-East Shield received qualifier slots. Initially this just required a preliminary round of a few ties and it was decided licensed clubs, were exempt. However as SFA members met their goal of getting licensed - and LL grew to 16 - this squeezed out that solution and for 2015-16 there had to be 2 preliminary rounds. In June 2016 the SFA failed to bring any proposal to its AGM but shortly after their board adopted an 'emergency measure' that solved the problems by putting licensed clubs outwith SPFL/HL/LL into the preliminaries. This was pretty unfair on these clubs - they had worked hard towards licensing in order to keep their places in the Scottish Cup proper and no more than 6 of them could ever reach R1 even if they avoided defeat to each other and the qualifiers - but despite large scale opposition it narrowly passed at 2017 AGM. However this measure itself is now almost maxed-out. To return to the stat I began with: in 2007 there were 36 non-league members and upto 6 qualifiers. There are now 34 non-league members in HL / LL alone (all entitled to join at R1), 14 other non-league members, and upto 8 qualifiers. Membership and licensing also have the same criteria so using that as a differential is also redundant. So with 12* more members and rising - all licensed - and upto 2 more qualifiers, it's gone from having "spare byes to give away" in 2007 to the cup "strangling itself" in 2018.*joined since 2007 are... Formartine; Strathspey; Turriff; BSCG; Cumbernauld; EK; Edusport; Gretna 2008; Kelty; Stirling Uni; Linlithgow; LTHV; + Banks o'Dee - while Gretna FC folded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 13, 2018 Author Share Posted July 13, 2018 Draw for PR1 & PR2 announced as 3pm on Monday. Here's the teams:Play in First Preliminary Round 1 Auchinleck Talbot 2 Beith 3 Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic 4 Shortless 5 Tynecastle9/14 will be drawn to play in First Preliminary Round 6 Banks o'Dee 7 Burntisland Shipyard 8 Coldstream 9 Girvan 10 Glasgow University 11 Golspie Sutherland 12 Hawick Royal Albert 13 Linlithgow Rose 14 Lothian Thistle HV 15 Newton Stewart 16 Preston Athletic 17 St Cuthbert Wanderers 18 Threave Rovers 19 Wigtown & Bladnoch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 First Preliminary Round (Girvan, LTHV, Newton Stewart, Linlithgow and Wigtown were not randomly drawn to play in PR1)Hawick v BonnyriggTynecastle v Shortlees Golspie v Burntisland Auchinleck v Banks o'DeeColdstream v St CuthbertPreston v Glasgow Uni Threave v Beith With the exception of Hawick that's a reasonably favourable draw for EOSL clubs.Second Preliminary Round Auchinleck / Banks o'Dee v Wigtown Girvan v Golspie / BurntislandHawick / Bonnyrigg v Tynecastle / Shortlees Newton Stewart v Coldstream / St CuthbertPreston / Glasgow Uni v Linlithgow Threave / Beith v LTHV Less favourable with several drawing each other and LTHV potentially travelling to Beith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdenbeath Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 3 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said: First Preliminary Round (Girvan, LTHV, Newton Stewart, Linlithgow and Wigtown were not randomly drawn to play in PR1)Hawick v BonnyriggTynecastle v Shortlees Golspie v Burntisland Auchinleck v Banks o'DeeColdstream v St CuthbertPreston v Glasgow Uni Threave v Beith With the exception of Hawick that's a reasonably favourable draw for EOSL clubs.Second Preliminary Round Auchinleck / Banks o'Dee v Wigtown Girvan v Golspie / BurntislandHawick / Bonnyrigg v Tynecastle / Shortlees Newton Stewart v Coldstream / St CuthbertPreston / Glasgow Uni v Linlithgow Threave / Beith v LTHV Less favourable with several drawing each other and LTHV potentially travelling to Beith. Notice that Burghmuir Rugby are scheduled to be playing two friendly games at home on the 11th August. Possible switch for the Tynecastle game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 First Preliminary Round (Girvan, LTHV, Newton Stewart, Linlithgow and Wigtown were not randomly drawn to play in PR1)Hawick v BonnyriggTynecastle v Shortlees Golspie v Burntisland Auchinleck v Banks o'DeeColdstream v St CuthbertPreston v Glasgow Uni Threave v Beith With the exception of Hawick that's a reasonably favourable draw for EOSL clubs.Second Preliminary Round Auchinleck / Banks o'Dee v Wigtown Girvan v Golspie / BurntislandHawick / Bonnyrigg v Tynecastle / Shortlees Newton Stewart v Coldstream / St CuthbertPreston / Glasgow Uni v Linlithgow Threave / Beith v LTHV Less favourable with several drawing each other and LTHV potentially travelling to Beith.Any chance of Glasgow Uni beating Preston? I played for them a little bit, quarter of a century ago, so I'd like to see the Rose play them. Happy either way as it'll be a new ground for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 5 minutes ago, cowdenbeath said: Notice that Burghmuir Rugby are scheduled to be playing two friendly games at home on the 11th August. Possible switch for the Tynecastle game? Scottish Cup = priority, surely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted July 16, 2018 Author Share Posted July 16, 2018 3 minutes ago, GordonS said: Any chance of Glasgow Uni beating Preston? ... it'll be a new ground for me. Airdrie? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdenbeath Posted July 16, 2018 Share Posted July 16, 2018 Just now, HibeeJibee said: Scottish Cup = priority, surely. On the Burghmuir OS in their original news release about Tyncastle ground sharing it says that Tynie respected that it had been Burghmuir's ground for 98 years and rugby had 1st call on the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmontheloknow Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 7 hours ago, gogsy said: Glasgow Uni beat a decent Lothian Thistle team in the South Challlenge cup last year I think, and only lost to South champions Threave in the Scottish cup after a replay so probably have a chance. (Obviously squad might be different this season) That was the LTHV odd result considering how average Glasgow Uni are - did they rest players? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonS Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 13 hours ago, HibeeJibee said: Airdrie? I didn't know that. How disappointing. 11 hours ago, gogsy said: Glasgow Uni beat a decent Lothian Thistle team in the South Challlenge cup last year I think, and only lost to South champions Threave in the Scottish cup after a replay so probably have a chance. (Obviously squad might be different this season) Ta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyeswideopen15 Posted July 17, 2018 Share Posted July 17, 2018 I can see Shortlees beating Tynecastle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HibeeJibee Posted August 2, 2018 Author Share Posted August 2, 2018 On 16/07/2018 at 21:41, cowdenbeath said: Notice that Burghmuir Rugby are scheduled to be playing two friendly games at home on the 11th August. Possible switch for the Tynecastle game? Switched to Sunday 12th August. Probably boost the crowd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.