ROMANCE OF CUP LIFTS OPENING DAY CLOUDS

THE opening day of shinty's 2015 season may have been a wash-out, but at least we had the Camanachd Cup draw to cheer us up.

A paltry five of 26 scheduled matches survived torrential rainfall overnight on Friday into Saturday March 7 - and predictably the survivors were located towards Scotland's east coast and north east corner.


After the first round of matches, John Gillies of Skye Camanachd and Aberdeen University's Kenny Cushnie are the joint top scorers in shinty following their hat-tricks versus Boleskine and Strathspey respectively in Marine Harvest North Division 2.

In the only Marine Harvest Premiership match played, Lovat and Lochaber fought out a 3-3 draw in a game reversed from Spean Bridge. The score was tied at a goal apiece when ref Innes Wood blew for half-time, but the fireworks didn't really begin until 20 minutes into the second period, when Jamie Matheson scored his second goal of the game to give Lovat the lead.

But the home side's joy turned to despair ten minutes later when quickfire Shaun Nicolson and Sandy Corrigan strikes took Lochaber to a 3-2 lead. Then, eight minutes from time, the ever-reliable Kevin Bartlett soothed Lovat nerves as he levelled matters.

Kiltarlity drama aside - after something of a false start fingers, toes and camans are definitely crossed for week two of the summer season on March 14.

Monday March 9 saw the draw made for the 2015 SSE Scottish Hydro Camanachd Cup - the one every shinty player wants to win - by Camanachd Association president, Jim Barr, and acting SSE operations manager, Iain Morrison.

Vying to host the final are two towns in Argyll - Dunoon and Oban. Oban is a veteran of many Camanachd finals past, while Dunoon has just the one - in 2006 when Kingussie were victorious - yet lies in Cowal, a famous hotbed of shinty.

Each is a worthy venue and will attract a large support no matter who takes the field in the biggest day in shinty on September 19.

The draw is as follows:

Preliminary round, Saturday April 18:
Caberfeidh v Glenorchy
Taynuilt v Skye
Beauly v Kilmallie

First round, Saturday May 9:
Oban Celtic v Taynuilt / Skye
Aberdour v Caberfeidh / Glenorchy
Ballachulish v Glasgow Mid Argyll
Inverness v Kilmory
Strachur v Bute
Beauly / Kilmallie v Strathglass

The draw for the second round includes the teams from the Marine Harvest Premiership and will be made following the completion of the first round.