Cowden v Hibs

By Graham Barnstaple
January 8 2012

Yesterday’s fourteen provided no upsets, apart from St. Mirren and Kilmarnock drawing with Hamilton and Dundee respectively.

The only real shocker of the day was the coverage on Sportscene which served up mere glimpses of some games and then extended coverage of games which has little excitement.

It also had the usual bland post match comments with Pat Nevin summing it up when he said that Henrik Ojamaa had being doing a good job for Motherwell despite only ever playing 20 minutes for the club!

Back to the football, it was assumed Aberdeen and Hibs were ripe for a shock with visits to Forfar and Cowdenbeath. The Dons were emphatic winners by four goals to nil and were never in any danger.

Hibs on the other hand lost a goal in the opening minute but scored the next three in the game, before suffering a wobble in the last few minutes when it was pulled back to 3-2 But in the end they made it through to Monday’s draw.

It will also be interesting to see if the Compliance Officer has a look at the gestures made by Leigh Griffiths after his goal at Central Park. He has already picked up a ban for gestures in a game already this season.

The closest to an upset were the two draws between St. Mirren and Hamilton (a 0-0 snorefest) and the 1-1 between Dundee and Kilmarnock.

There was a degree of controversy in the Dundee game when it looked as though the home side had taken the lead but Milne’s effort was disallowed for offside, after the assistant ref had given the goal.

Ref Stevie O’Reilly consulted with his assistant and eventually reached the right decision as TV pictures show he was offside.

Hopefully the fifth round will provide more excitement than the fourth did!