Manager on Friday

24/04/09: "My view is that you shouldn't play at Hampden unless you get to the Final. I have had some great semi finals at Hampden - I have been a lucky boy that way - but it should be kept for the Final."

Jim McIntyre has described Jamie Mole and Scott Muirhead's chances of making Hampden on Sunday as 50/50. He confirmed that he will be missing the experience of Greg Shields but he hopes that some his younger players will grasp the opportunity to shine on a higher stage.

"There are definitely two or three of our players who could make the next step. Games like this are to show what you are made of and you have to grab the game by the scruff of the neck."

The Manager is hopeful that he will have to make a selection on Sunday and accepts that disappointing some of his players is just part and parcel of being a manager:-

"It is not something you look forward to but you have got to name a team that can go and win the game. That's the be all and end all. I know as a player I liked to be told why I wasn't playing and I hated when the team was read out and I wasn't told about it previously. If I'd played the previous weeks I felt I deserved to be playing."

Macca believes that managers might change teams for tactical reasons but as far as he he is concerned if you play well you keep the jersey.

"If you are changing things around a wee bit I always pull those affected aside and telling them here's the reason why. They will not always agree with you."

Jim said that he will not name his team until he gets to Hampden on Sunday. He is resigned to the fact that the venue will be nowhere near full but considers that the clubs would have struggled to fill the National Stadium even if it was the Final.

"I would have chosen Tynecastle. My view is that you shouldn't play at Hampden unless you get to the Final. I have had some great semi finals at Hampden - I have been a lucky boy that way - but it should be kept for the Final."

Macca knows how it feels to play at Hampden when it's less than full; there were only 8536 present when he converted the penalty that sent the Pars through to the 2007 Cup Final:-

"You forget about it and just get on with the game. You concentrate on the job in hand. The Saturday was a far better atmosphere with 25000 there but there is something about night games that players love.

"One thing about Hampden is that it is the stickiest pitch in the world every time I have played there. They don't seem to soak the pitch the way you'd tell your groundsman to soak the pitch.

"They have tried their best. They have tried to re-lay it and do the right thing."

The Pars boss has every sympathy with the views expressed by his Falkirk counterpart John Hughes about having to use the Diadora ball that SFL clubs use in the Semi Final rather than a Premierleague Mitre:-

"He is spot on, it is a totally different ball. I remember when we played Dundee United in November, what a difference they are lighter and fly about. It is not an advantage, it is who passes it better on the day; it is about players on the day. I'm sure that they will be used to it from training with it all week."