After their impressive second-place finish in the league Robin Hood would have been expected to be one of the favourites to win the FA Cup.

However, the fact that they have never reached the final, while the other three semi-finalists have 18 titles between them, puts their task into perspective.

Hood know they have a tough game on their hands when they take on Devonshire Cougars in Sunday’s first semi-final at Police Field at 1pm.

Dandy Town, the two-times defending champions, will play PHC Zebras in the second semi-final at 3pm.

Hood have been in three semi-finals, losing to PHC in 1992 when they were a Commercial League team and then again in 2012 to North Village in their first season in the Premier Division.

They also lost 1-0 to Town in 2014 when they returned to the top flight. Advancing beyond the semi-finals could be Hood’s biggest challenge, and they will not find it easy against a Cougars side that have a good FA Cup record of late, winning three of the last six finals.

“It should work in our favour, everybody will have us as the outsiders, but I’m just hoping we have the ability to make it to the final,” Kyle Lightbourne, the Robin Hood coach, said.

Lightbourne helped PHC win the FA Cup in 1991-92 after beating Hood in the semi-finals, going on to score 33 goals in what was his final season before turning professional in England.

After reaching this season’s Dudley Eve Trophy final when they lost to PHC at Wellington Oval, Lightbourne hopes they can now reach a first FA final.

“This is a one-off game and the league has nothing to do with this,” Lightbourne said. “We’re looking for a good performance.

“This is a good opportunity for us and hopefully we can get past this hurdle. I think Devonshire Cougars will be thinking the same thing.

“We know what cup games bring, everybody knows they have one shot at it. They should be up for it, we’ll be up for it and it should be two good games that day.”

All the four teams have played at Police Field twice this season, with Town and Hood beating Boulevard and Devonshire Colts in the league while Cougars had a win and a draw and PHC suffered two 2-1 defeats to the two promoted sides.

“We’ve also had Nathan Peskett sent off twice up there,” Lightbourne said. “We did have a joke about it that both times we’ve played up there with ten men, that we might as well start the game with ten men.

“We’ve had a really good season overall, we reached a cup final earlier this season.”

The four semi-finalist are all hoping to advance to next Sunday’s final which has been put back a week.

Town are aiming for a league and FA Cup Double but they cannot afford to look much further than PHC. Zebras have won an impressive ten FA finals, even though they have only managed two titles, in 1992 and 2008, in the past 24 years, with wins over Town in the finals.

Town and Cougars have been the only winners in the last six seasons, claiming three titles each, with Cougars’ 2010 win over Somerset Eagles their first success in the FA Cup.

Town are two wins away from joining PHC, Somerset and Young Men’s Social Club as the only teams to win three straight FA Cup finals. That feat was last accomplished in 1970.

Town have won the cup five times. PHC and Town have met four times this season, PHC winning two cup games while Town won both league encounters.

NAME ON THE TROPHY

2009—2010: Devonshire Cougars 2 Somerset Eagles 2 (Cougars won 5-4 on penalties)

2010—2011: Devonshire Cougars 4 Southampton Rangers 1

2011—2012: Dandy Town 5 North Village 2

2012—2013: Devonshire Cougars 3 Somerset Trojans 0

2013—2014: Dandy Town 1 North Village 0

2014—2015: Dandy Town 3 Flanagan’s Onions 1