CUP-TIES are supposed to be competitive and captivating, not confused and chaotic. But last weekend’s Scottish Cup semi-final between Glasgow Hawks and Heriot’s will certainly be remembered for those latter characteristics, no matter the quality of rugby that was on display.

The teams were level 10-10 at the end of 80 minutes, so, as everyone expected, they went to extra-time. They were still tied at ten apiece at the end of extra-time, but this time there was far from a universal expectation of what would come next.

Then, in what the Sunday Herald called an act of “bizarre bureaucracy”, the referee ruled that Heriot’s were in the final because they were the away team. By the time the decision was announced, a fair number of people in the ground had concluded that the Edinburgh club would be declared the winners - but on the grounds that they had scored the first try.

It should be said that the referee, Lloyd Linton, applied the rules entirely correctly. They are there in black and white on page 346 of the Scottish Rugby Record. Regulation 8.1 says that if teams are equal at the end of extra time, the team that has scored most tries, then most conversions, then most drop goals, goes through. Regulation 8.2 adds: “If Regulation 8.1 does not produce a result, in all rounds up to and including the national semi-finals, the away club shall go forward into the next round.”

So what’s the problem? It’s a twofold one, really. First, there was the widespread ignorance of the regulation in question - Heriot’s coach Phil Smith said his club had “kind of got wind of it” during the game, but that was far from being the case for everyone who was there. Second, there is the question, to borrow a phrase from football, of the integrity of the competition.

They say that ignorance of the law is no defence, but that’s when you’re talking about criminal offences. In the case of a competition like the Scottish Cup, you have to wonder what could be done to enlighten us, say at the start of the season, not after the event. And yet, before representatives of Scottish Rugby embark on a nationwide tour to explain the rules to a benighted populace, they really should think about changing that one regulation in favour of away teams in particular.

The principle, surely, should be that neither team has an advantage at the start of a tie. If the tie is held over two legs, fair enough if one team begins the second leg with a big lead But if it is a one-off match that begins 0-0, it should mean exactly that: the game starts off evenly balanced, and the winner is decided by one team getting the better of the other on the field of play. The situation as it stands is tantamount to the away team beginning the game with a 1-0 lead.

How a fairer outcome is arrived at is a secondary matter. You could have additional, sudden-death extra time - something that Regulation 8.3 makes allowance for in the case of matches played at neutral venues. You could deduct players at the start of extra-time to produce more space. You could get the props to take penalties. But whatever the method, it should be something to do with skill.

Why does this matter? Because the Scottish Cup and its subsidiary competitions should be a big unifying factor in the game, in which finals day is a real celebration for the rugby community. Instead, it has been slowly downgraded, with the Hawks-Heriot’s hubbub just one sign that some of the tournament’s heart has been lost - even if it was nowhere near as bad as the day a few years back when a cup tie at Currie had to double up as a league match.

In its early years, which coincided with the start of professionalism, the Scottish Cup was a burgeoning event. The first competition was in 1996, won by Hawick, and both then, and again the following year when Melrose were the winners, the crowd at Murrayfield was around 20,000.

At the time, that was seen as a modest attendance for a stadium that holds 67,000, and for an occasion that had been inaugurated as the annual showcase for Scottish club rugby. We reminded ourselves, however, that similar competitions, in England and Wales for example, had also started off without giant crowds, only to grow substantially over the years. And we were optimistic that the Scottish event would follow a similar pattern.

Alas, it has gone in the opposite direction, shrinking, not growing, from those early days. The major cause of that decline has been the return to amateur status of the club game, with those international players who graced the first few finals having all become full-timers with the professional teams by the turn of the century. That is not going to change any time soon, and when Melrose meet Heriot’s in the final next month no-one taking part will be as well known as the players who won the cup for those clubs in the early years of the tournament.

There is, nonetheless, still a fair amount of enthusiasm for the competition at the grass roots. But there would be an awful lot more if its rules were clearer and fairer.