Presteigne St Andrews FC bowed out of the Radnorshire Cup at the first time of asking as they were beaten 5-0 at Brecon Town in their first-round tie on Sunday, 27 September.
Apparently the less said about this game the better from a Presteigne perspective, although congratulations to Brecon Town and all the best to them for the remainder of the competition.
I am told that we were really struggling to raise a side for this one and so, without taking anything away from those who were good enough to make the trip and to whom we are very grateful, maybe this was something of a factor in the result.
But, it was a heavy defeat that took a bit of the gloss of what had been an encouraging win at Newbridge in the league on Saturday afternoon.
I am guessing the general view will be that we need to put this one behind us quickly and move on, but there is still no getting away from the fact this was a poor result in the County Cup.
Some supporters might well moan about our taking only 12 players, but if people don’t want to play, we can’t make them.
Perhaps, in the modern-day game, maybe it is too much of an ask for clubs to expect players to give up both days of their weekend to play football and so maybe it isn’t surprising that Jamie was struggling for his first-choice squad.
Maybe the fact that both games were away from home was also a factor although a cup draw is a cup draw, and if you have to travel, then so be it.
I know a lot of ex-players reading this will say: ‘We regularly used to play Saturdays and Sundays..’ and they would be right, but times change and players have other things going on in their lives.
Discuss…. although I freely admit there are no easy answers to this one.