Welsh Cup football

The Welsh Cup is one of the longest standing club competitions on gods green earth. Wrexham won the trophy for the first time in 1878 and up until 1996, one of my favourite competitions to watch my beloved Merthyr Tydfil FC in. 1987 saw Merthyr win the damn thing 1-0 in a replay final at Ninian Park against Newport, they then proceeded to beat Atalanta 2-1 at penydarren park before getting done 2-0 in Italy in the 87-88 Cup Winner Cup. I was only 5 so can't really remember this, but it's all good.

Then to everyone's disappointment we were excluded from the cup as we played in the English System. Merthyr joined Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, Newport and Colwyn Bay as teams excluded from their own national cup competition. Booooo

Then news came out at the start of this year we (now of course Merthyr Town) we once again invited to join, along with the other 5! 3 accepted (Merthyr, Newport and Wrexham) and the excitement began. Now as Merthyr play in a very backwards league at the moment (and who knows for how long) we joined in the 2nd qualifying round, playing 2 games in 2 days and with a second string beating a small team 5-1. All good. The draw came out and Merthyr got Barry Town in the first round. Much additional excitement!

Merthyr and Barry had an awesome rivalry back in the day, yes now both teams have fallen on hard times and dropped down the respective league systems, but the rivalry was still there. This was potentially the tie of the round with the Welsh Premier and Blue Square Premier teams not joining for 2 more matches.
Game day came and Merthyr put their team on twitter and I went what? It was a second string. I knew at that moment we'd get beat against by all accounts a tidy Barry side. I'm very sorry but who exactly do Merthyr think they are playing 'fringe' players in a cup match against a team that'd give our first side a potentially even match.

What was the thinking?

Is the Welsh is (was) not a priority? Then why enter it, nobody had a gun to their heads.

Did we disrespect the opposition? Arrogance? Someone needs to have a long hard look at some of the players in the side, even the first team, then have a look at the teams who've beaten us in competitions so far this year and reassess how good they think we are again. Last years league wasn't a pub league, but it certainly wasn't high quality, had to be won, but don't get carried away.

Did the manager(s) misjudge the game? They both played in Merthyr v Barry games, they know the rivalry. Sounds a bit naive to me.

Anyway, Barry won easily and deservedly 3-0 and Merthyr sit out the business stages of the competition. Based on that as well looks like I'll be saving myself some £7's in the upcoming weeks, oh well!