Post by Taxigirl on Mar 10, 2004 11:43:09 GMT
Scottish Cup favourites Celtic avoided bogey-side Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the draw for the semi-finals made live on BBC One Scotland.
Caley Thistle, who have won the last two Scottish Cup meetings with Celtic, will instead face Dunfermline Athletic on Saturday 10 April at Hampden.
Celtic await the winners of next Thursday's replay between Livingston and Aberdeen, which is live on TV.
That semi-final will take place on Sunday 11 April, also at Hampden.
Holders Rangers were knocked out in Sunday's quarter-final at Celtic Park.
Celtic, already with a commanding lead in the championship race, will be strong favourites to progress to the cup final despite facing Scottish Premier League opposition.
CIS Cup finalists Livingston kept up their excellent record at Pittodrie to draw on Sunday, but they must end a run of having hosted the Dons six times without winning if they are to retain hopes of reaching two finals in a season.
By defeating Partick Thistle at Firhill, Dunfermline reached their first semi-final since winning the trophy in 1968.
Pars chairman John Yorkston said: "It is a favourable draw because, obviously, nobody wanted to get Celtic.
"But we have still got to beat Inverness and they have proved themselves to be a very good cup team in recent seasons."
Caley Thistle reached last season's semi-finals before losing to Dundee and produced the surprise of this term's quarter-finals by defeating SPL outfit Motherwell away from home.
They also knocked Celtic out of the Scottish Cup in March last year, having first signalled their arrival as cup specialists by beating the Glasgow side in 2000.
The financial incentives of reaching the final for the Pars are enormous, the Fife club having asked players to take a pay cut earlier this year to prevent the club from following Dundee, Livingston and Motherwell into administration.
"Obviously, getting to the semi is a big financial boost," said Yorkston.
"But getting to the final itself would be an even bigger one.
"But we don't want to go on about the final because we are not there.
"Reaching the semi has been an achievement for the team. Now we want to go one better."