QUEENS HEROES, DONS ZEROES

And let’s get one thing straight. For all the tightness of that amazing scoreline, Queens deserve to be through to the final.

They were the ones who ticked all the boxes on semi-final day — notoriously an occasion when nerves get the better of players.

Chis’s champs had better individual performers. They were far better organised. They showed more guts when the going got tough. And they showed a hell of a lot more resilience as Aberdeen’s brittle spirit deserted them just when they needed it most.

Aberdeen reject John Stewart — a first-half sub for Queens’ top scorer Stephen Dobbie — hammered the final nail in his old club’s coffin at the end of a crazy second-half spell of five goals in 13 minutes.

For Jimmy Calderwood, above, it was an occasion where his side once again flopped miserably in a Cup semi-final.

And after the second cup semi-final this season when his side have lost four goals — and let’s not forget last season’s humbling in the League Cup by Queen’s Park — you do wonder about his long-term future.

Harsh? Well, every time one of these teams went up the Hampden pitch yesterday, they looked as though they were going to score. That team wasn’t playing in red.

Really, Aberdeen’s defenders had one of those days when it looked as though they’d been practising how to lose goals.

And boy did a hard-working Queens attack, with Sean O’Connor terrific, take advantage of their incompetence.

It looked like far too many in red thought just showing up at Hampden would be sufficient to book a final place, a fatal attitude for a team as unpredictable as Aberdeen, especially against a Queens team who hadn’t lost a goal in their four previous Scottish Cup ties.

Yesterday was Queens’ first-ever appearance on live TV. Their fans will only have to wait another six weeks for the next!

Their heroes have built a reputation this season on their bright passing style and inside two minutes there was a portent of things to come for the Dons. Derek Soutar and Andy Considine between them failed to deal with a through ball and the Aberdeen goalkeeper’s clearance spun off the oncoming O’Connor wide of the post.

It was a little moment which seemed to unnerve Aberdeen. The SPL outfit, who should have gone into the game buoyed by having reached the top six last Monday, barely managed an attack of any consequence in the opening 20 minutes and when Queens scored, against the run of play it was not!

O’Connor, above, has built a reputation at Palmerston as the best header of a ball in Division One, and it was the big striker who caused the chaos in the Dons defence.

Ryan McCann’s free-kick was right on top of Soutar but, under pressure from the striker, he flapped at the ball and it fell for Andy Aitken, who steered it into Tosh’s path on the edge of the box. A more inexperienced player might have lashed at the opening, but Tosh steered the ball towards the roof of the net and although the diving Soutar got a hand to it, he couldn’t prevent it going in.

The Aberdeen response was pedestrian. Queens, with O’Connor game and willing and Dobbie menacing despite an early knee knock, always looked livelier.

Aitken had the ball in the net from Dobbie’s crisp pass but was clearly offside, but another long high ball caused more carnage in the Dons defence until a last-gasp tackle by Sone Aluko on Tosh averted the danger.

Gradually, Aberdeen built up a head of steam and finally one of a series of free-kicks on the edge of the box earned them a reward.

Barry Nicholson’s kick spun off the head of Tosh to the back post, where Scott Severin headed back across goal. Considine got above Queens’ skipper Jim Thomson to steer a header down and wide of his Scotland Under-21 team-mate Jamie MacDonald.

Queens went back ahead three minutes after the interval when O’Connor allowed Jamie McQuilken’s pass to run into the path of Stewart, and the Queens sub had the beating of Zander Diamond from the minute the pair set off in chase.

With the Dons defender in his slipstream, Stewart put the ball across goal and although Paul Burns drove his first effort against Severin, he recovered to blast his side ahead.

Aberdeen, at sixes and sevens in defence, could have been 3-1 down in Queens’ next attack.  A goalmouth scramble saw a series of Dons players trying — and failing — to clear and they were saved only by Burns blasting over from 10 yards out.

It was to prove a costly miss. MacDonald did well to save Lee Miller’s header from Chris Maguire’s cross but Nicholson, above — one of Aberdeen’s very few successes on a black day — forced in the rebound.

Queens’ third goal came in their next attack and summed up the kind of day Aberdeen’s central defenders had. Tosh’s long ball should have been meat and drink to them, but Considine let the ball bounce over his head and O’Connor had time to gather, skip around Diamond’s flailing tackle, and fire crisply under Soutar.

The crazy goal glut continued and the Dons battled back to 3-3 when Miller flicked on Nicholson’s cross for Considine to head in his second.

But Queens weren’t to be denied and more dire defending saw McCann’s cross flicked on by Thomson to Stewart, who had time at the back post to gather the ball and fire past Soutar.

Aberdeen howled for a penalty seven minutes from time when Aluko, in his one contribution of note all day, went down in the box.

But TV proved it had been a tremendous tackle by Queens’ Jim Thomson — far from his first.

QUEEN OF THE SOUTH: MacDonald, McCann (Paton 90), Thomson, Aitken, Harris, Burns, Tosh, MacFarlane, McQuilken, O’Connor, Dobbie (Stewart 42). Subs not used: Grindlay, O’Neill, Gilmour.
ABERDEEN: Soutar, Maybury (Young 80), Diamond, Considine, McNamara (Mackie 62), Nicholson, Severin, Foster, Aluko, Maguire, Miller. Subs not used: Langfield, Duff, Touzani.