By grabar
February 7 2009

Well and St. Mirren are still in the Scottish Cup at the end of a truly awful Scottish Cup tie at Fir Park this afternoon. There had been much talk about the last time these two had met at Fir Park in the Scottish Cup back in 1977 when Alex Ferguson was manager at Love St. Sadly there was none of the emotion of that afternoon this time round. The first news was the strange team selection from Mark McGhee with John Sutton left on the bench and being replaced by Stephen Hughes in what looked like a 4-5-1 formation. Strange for a home cup tie when 4-4-2 has served us so well recently. We started reasonably well with David Clarkson and Marc Fitzpatrick coming close early on but it was Saints who took the lead in the 12^th minute with their first real attack.  Billy Mehmet’s through ball released Andy Dorman, the Americans first effort was blocked by Graeme Smith but the American was left with a simple chance to blast the ball high into the net from the rebound. The remainder of the half was marred by the pitch which made control difficult as the ball bounced and bobbled all over the place. Cillian Sheridan made his debut at the start of the second half but the standard of play wasn’t lifted at all and it was summed up by a shot from Mehmet which landed 30 yards wide of the goal. We were pretty much camped in the St. Mirren goal without ever looking threatening, that was until we found an equaliser in the 66^th minute. Clarkson’s cross picked out Sheridan’s whose shot was beaten out by Howard but it fell for Hughes to smash home his first goal of the season. Saints almost stole the tie in stoppage time when Scott Cuthbert got his toe to a Steven Robb free kick but Smith reacted well to get down low to his left to keep the ball out. The teams will be delighted to have another go at things a week on Tuesday on a pitch that will hopefully be more conducive to good football.