Aberdeen ban Stenhousemuir star Seb Ross from facing Falkirk in cup derby

The Dons loanee would be cup-tied if he played and will sit the derby out, along with Kevin O’Hara, unable to play against parent club Falkirk.

But the Warriors’ other two loan signings - Harry Paton (Ross County) and Conor McBrearty (St Mirren) are available - much to the relief of caretaker boss Colin McMenamin.

He joked: “It’s just as well, otherwise I might have to play myself.”

McMenamin will remain in charge for the tie - he expects it to be next week before Brown Ferguson’s replacement is announced - and says it is one everyone at Ochilview is looking forward to.

He said: “It’s a great tie for the club. It’s been mayhem since the draw was made.

“Since I’ve been at the club we’ve not had many good ties in terms of bringing fans into the ground, so it’s one that we’re looking forward to.

“It adds a wee bit of spice with it being a local derby. The board reckon there will be between 1,500 and 2,000 which you don’t often get at Stenhousemuir, so there should be a reasonable crowd, a good atmosphere and we’re hoping to make it into a good old-fashioned cup tie.

“It’s good for the club financially as well, just to get that amount of people in the club.

“Falkirk aren’t going to enjoy coming to our wee stadium. They’re full-time, they’ve got a lot of good pros that I’ve played against many times.

“They’ll be expected to come and win it and we haven’t got anything to lose. But at the same time we want to apply ourselves properly, we don’t want to make the same mistakes that we’ve been making, we want to show that we’re learning from our mistakes.

“It’s definitely a game that we can go and impose ourselves on and try and take something out of.”