It’s difficult to know how to feel after Saturday’s Scottish Cup draw at Nairn, which forces us into another replay this weekend.
On the one hand a draw at Station Park, not a ground that has been kind to us recently, and the chance to take them back to the Harmsworth is, on paper, a decent result.
But given the amount of chances we created and the fact that that was probably our best performance of the entire season, it is easy to become frustrated at the outcome.
It was a close call for man of the match between Callum Antell and the frame of Nairn’s goal as they combined to deny Academy on numerous occasions.
On the plus side, we now have a full squad available for selection after several weeks of injuries, suspensions and players being on holiday.
It was evident from kick-off that Davie Allan was not fully fit, but just his presence on the pitch seemed to benefit us and contributed to his strike partner Gary Weir having his best game of the season.
On another day our Scottish Cup specialist could have had a hat-trick or more, but it was his all round play that was most impressive.
And Sam Mackay was once again instrumental for us in the middle of the park.
After deservedly winning the vote for goal of the round for his long range strike against Whitehill in the previous round, he could be in line for another nomination for a different, yet equally impressive, kind of goal on Saturday when he accelerated beyond the Nairn midfield, played an excellent one-two with Davie Allan and coolly slotted past Antell.
There’s no doubt in my mind that if Academy play as well as they did in the replay as they did at Station Park then they will reach the third round, but with both sides faltering from inconsistency so far this season, it really could go either way.
It’s a shame that next week’s derby game against Brora had to be postponed and will likely be held on a Wednesday night again.
But I have heard through the grapevine that this postponement is set to cost Brora a fair amount of money as they had an entire day of activities set around this game which they have now had to cancel, so every cloud and all that…