The fourth round of the SSE Scottish Women's Cup has produced much more competitive ties than those of a fortnight ago, when one game ended 24-0 and two others 16-0.
Game of the day is unquestionably the Edinburgh derby between promotion seeking Hearts and the winners of the last three Scottish Cups, Hibernian. The sides met in the first round of this year's SWPL Cup, with the latter winning 1-0. It is now approaching four years since Hibs lost a domestic cup tie.
Absolutely no shortage of incentive for Hearts then, but there is also an intriguing tie at Balmoral Stadium, the home of Cove Rangers. Aberdeen have moved their home game against Kilmarnock to the ground.
Both sides have been in the news this month. Third tier Aberdeen provided the only major upset of the previous round by coming from behind to beat SWPL1 Spartans 2-1, while Kilmarnock's league game against Partick Thistle last Sunday was abandoned following a bad injury to American goalkeeper Ailey Tebbett.
“It was extremely frightening when two players went over towards her and the referee saw their reaction,” head coach Stewart Hall confirmed. “She was unconscious after the horrendous challenge on her.
“Ailey has now got three or four weeks with no contact sport at all which is a big shame for her.”
Tebbett arrived in Scotland in January to continue her studies and within three weeks ruptured and dislocated a shoulder. She spent about six months in rehab following surgery, and was making her comeback when the latest misfortune occurred.
Shelley Kerr: I never thought I'd see a crowd like this in my lifetime
Lauren McGregor, who was unavailable last week, returns but Kilmarnock have four outfield players out for the trip to Aberdeen – two are suspended and two are unable to travel as they work for the police and can't get time off.
Ironically, Aberdeen co-manager Emma Hunter admits she got information from today's opposite number Hall when she was doing her research on Spartans in the previous round. The pair did their A licences at the same time.
Hunter's side have won twelve and drawn one of their 13 games in SWFL Division 1 North, and so are on course to achieve their aim of returning to SWPL1 by 2021. They suffered successive relegations in 2017 and 2018, but, reinvigorated by overdue support from the parent club, are on the up again.
“I don't think Spartans underestimated us, but maybe got a shock at our fitness levels and how good we were,” Hunter said of the third round win. “To be honest it was such a close game it could have gone either way. When we got our chances we took them.”
Booth: Shelley Kerr will make history with this team
Aberdeen have a young side and have their own problems today. The scorers at Ainslie Park, former under-19 internationalists Chloe Gover and Lauren Gordon, are both injured. However, 15-year-old prodigy Bayley Hutchison is returning to form and caused Spartans big problems when running at them from deep positions.
Hunter, who spent part of last week in Largs with the Scotland under-16 squad, is enjoying the new backing from Pittodrie, and said: “We haven't had this support before so we enjoy it and appreciate it.
“Everything we get we're grateful for. But we don't want anything handed to us at this club because we're a women's team. We want to earn it.”
Scotland squad return
THE Scotland squad meets up tomorrow for the opening Euro 2021 qualifier against Cyprus at Easter Road on Friday. The Scottish FA, the coaching staff and the players are all keeping their counsels about the fall-out from the disastrous defeat to Argentina in Paris and the events which followed in the next 24 hours.
It is therefore impossible to know exactly what happened at the hotel on June 20, and just how badly relationships within the group have been affected – but a picture can be built up from talking to informed sources.
That being the case, and as stated last week, it is now absolutely essential that the air is cleared tomorrow – and that the coaching staff and senior players send out clear and credible messages that there will be no further problems.
If they don't reconcile, the only winners are likely to be Scotland's main qualifying group rivals – Finland, managed by former Scotland head coach Anna Signeul, and Portugal.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here