Tennent's Scottish Cup 1st Round Replay - Queen's Park 1 - 2 Brechin City

This mad defensive lapse coupled with a horrific perfomance by referee John McKendrick sent Spiders spinning out the cup to the dismay of the Hampden crowd.

There were a couple of surprises in the starting line up, Mark Cairns and Richard Sinclair were unavailable and replaced by David Crawford and Damiano Agostini. Another shock was the inclusion of Mark Ferry, despite picking up a knock and being rated extremely doubtful.

There were milestones for both Mick Dunlop and Stephen Reilly as well, Reilly (pictured) making his 100th Queen's appearance while Dunlop was making his 50th appearance for Spiders.

Brechin started out on top in front of a 535 crowd at Hampden and pressured Queen's early on but it was Spiders who carved out the best chances, Trouten and Weatherston coming close.

We did take the lead in the 23rd minute when Trouten's cross was cleared back to him and he played the ball across to Paul Ronald on the edge of the box who planted a simply stunning volley into the top corner of the net past Craig Nelson to send the Queen's support into absolute delirium. An absolutely stunning goal which sparked Queen's into life.

Robert Dunn should have scored twice within a few minutes first showing unbelievable skill to skin 3 defenders before placing the ball right at Nelson when sent one-on-one with the veteran goalkeeper, he then blazed over from 18 yards with Nelson out of position.

Some of the football being played by Billy Stark's side was top class and the trio of Weatherston, Trouten and Paton were causing problems to the City defence. Their good play gave Ronald the chance of more glory but the big man didn't catch the 35 yard strike quite right and it was easily held by Nelson. Ferry forced two decent stops from the big keeper before Dunn's curler was also well held by the former Thistle man.

The half time whistle was welcome relief to Brechin as they were being completely over-run but the introduction of winger Charlie King at half time changed the game. He sparked some impetus from City and within only 8 minutes of the restart, Brechin were 2-1 ahead. Quickfire headers from Paddy Connolly and Steven Hampshire hurt Queen's and we never really found our fluency again.

We weathered a bit of a storm just after the hour mark and then started to play a bit again, but despite Richard Bowers and Steven Canning being introduced we passed up a number of late chances before bowing out of the cup, for another year. East Fife at Bayview next on Saturday, mon the HOOPS!

QUEEN'S PARK: David Crawford, Paul Paton, Mick Dunlop, Stephen Reilly, Richard Sinclair, Alan Trouten, Stuart Kettlewell, Robert Dunn (Steven Canning), Paul Ronald (Richard Bowers), David Weatherston, Mark Ferry

SUBS NOT USED: Alex Cowie, Paul Cairney, Jonny Whelan

GOALSCORER: Paul Ronald (23)

BOOKING: Mick Dunlop

REFEREE: John McKendrick

ATTENDANCE: 535

MAN OF THE MATCH: Paul Ronald