THERE is probably only one thing you can guarantee about this week's FA Cup semi-final ? there won't be a 9-0 scoreline!

The build up for last week's ultimately one-sided washout indicated a potentially fierce tie with an on-paper weaker side looking for revenge against the form team in Bermuda.

Instead, those who turned up for the game ? and there were many ? were treated to a goalscoring exhibition from the rampant young Villagers and a capitulation from a Parish side who had threatened to make up for last year's final disappointment.

This weekend's tie, by contrast, will be as close and intense as last week's game was flaccid and predictable.

Two of the island's perennial giants will clash at BAA for the dubious honour of taking on a Village side in the game that will decide whether or not the triple crown will head to Bernard Park this year.

Dandy Town already have the Martonmere to their name ? courtesy of an early-season victory over Somerset Trojans ? while Cougars claimed the Dudley Eve Trophy with a rare victory over Village, albeit on penalties, in the culmination of the festive tournament.

Cougars, robbed of their most lethal striker Raymond Beach for most of the season for what amounted to an illegal ban for a failed drugs test, have not quite been the same force as the side that claimed the league crown so sensationally last season.

Beach's absence has proved a major headache for the Rec-based side this term and despite the best efforts of skipper Kwame Steede and the effervescent Domico Coddington, Cougars have not quite been able to reproduce championship form.

This will make them more desperate to overcome Town this weekend and the 'Do or Die' attitude will be on display in abundance while Beach will likely be a handful searching for his first goal since returning to action.

Town, meanwhile, are also struggling to reproduce the form that saw them come within a whisker of the championship they had dominated last year ? only a penultimate weekend loss to Boulevard prevented that.

With skipper Lionel Furbert retiring and Khano Smith moving to the artificial pastures of Major League Soccer, Town are another side who have been less of a force than they were in 2004-2005 season.

However Devarr Boyles' men do have a trump card and it is a trump card which gets played more often the bigger the stage.

Carlos Smith, whose two-goal intervention in the quarter-finals brought Town to this stage of the competition, is a player never to be ignored and if he is given even the smallest amount of room, he is more than capable of ? Matt LeTissier-style ? creating a matchwinner from nothing and sending his side through to next week's final.

Whoever does triumph, they will be looking for revenge as both teams already have the dubious honour of losing with trophies on the line to the team in Red this year, Town in the Friendship and Cougars in the Charity Cup to a misleading 4-3 scoreline in a one-sided game.