Nairn County's participation in Scottish Cup not guaranteed, says manager Ronnie Sharp
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Ronnie Sharp insists there is no guarantee Nairn County will play their Scottish Cup second round fixture against Montrose.
It was confirmed earlier this week that the cup competition would resume this month, with the first matches due to take place on Tuesday, March 23.
As the Inverness Courier went to print though, Sharp still had several questions that would need to be answered before committing to hosting their League One opponents.
Nairn overcame Threave Rovers and a penalty shoot-out against Broxburn Athletic to progress to the current stage, but Sharp did not rule out withdrawing altogether.
“First of all we’ve got to speak to the players and the committee and find out what the scenarios are, whether we compete in it or not,” he explained.
“You could be training for just two weeks and playing for one game, and then it’s all stopped again.
“Is that worth doing? I don’t know. What are the risks going to be?
“It would be a lot easier to convince people to play in the Scottish Cup if the Highland League was coming back. If that’s not going to come back, I don’t know.
“I don’t know how people are with work situations. Just coming back for one game, how will the boys’ employers feel about it?
“I don’t know, we’re going to have to think about this, and we’ll see what happens.”
There is another element to take into account as well as cost and availability, which may seem obvious in the midst of a pandemic – the players’ health.
The risks of catching Covid-19 will be considered, especially as most involved are still waiting on a vaccine.
However, Sharp is also thinking about the risk of injuries with limited time to prepare, and whether that would be worthwhile longer term.
“You’d have to train for two weeks and play, that’s just the way it is but it’s pretty hard to do,” he said.
“We would have no other option, that’s just the way they’ve set it up. The date is set for the 23rd, which is just over two weeks away.
“I’m hoping none of the boys get seriously injured or anything like that. We’ll need to speak to everybody to see who’s available, and if it’s possible to do it.
“You’re only going to get a couple of weeks’ training, so we need to see what decisions are going to be made.
“We’ll have to look into whether testing gets done at training, or whether we have to go and get tested to see if it’s viable to do.”
