The experiment to include Scottish Premiership Colt teams in this season's Challenge Cup now sees only Celtic Under 20's left as the Irn-Bru sponsored tournament reaches the Third Round stage with the four non-Scottish Wild Card teams still to come in the shape of Northern Ireland sides Crusaders and Linfield and Bala Town and The New Saints from Wales.
Rangers U 20's lost 3-1 to Stenhousemuir at Forthbank on Wednesday 17th August to ruin the chance of an Old Firm final in a tournament originally designed to give non-top tier Scottish clubs a chance to shine in their own cup competition.
While some will cheer that the 'add ons' from the top tier this season have nearly all gone the Challenge Cup still remains an obstacle course for the SPFL teams without Premiership affiliation and we could yet have a most unusual looking final with Celtic U 20 v Linfield a controversial possibility or even a final with no Scottish teams at all which would surely bring ridicule on our game.
Celtic U 20's 2-1 win at Cowdenbeath on Tuesday 16th August was shown live on Premier Sports TV and while the Fifers may have received a healthy cheque for letting the cameras in the attendance of 449 was hardly a boost to the coffers at Central Park with the crowd being on a par with the League 2 club's average home attendance for SPFL fixtures.
We also saw a glimpse of what might transpire if the Old Firm ended up with B teams in the lower reaches of our league game on an annual basis.
Cowden were too fired up for the tie, with the game becoming a bit of a rough house, and far from enjoying the spectacle of future Scottish talent those in the ground and on TV were subjected to a match that seemed all about the so called wee team trying to show the Young Guns that they weren't going to strut their stuff just because they were up against a side currently 41st in the SPFL.
On-loan Hearts forward Nikolay Todorov put League 2 Cowden ahead (although the finger to lips celebration when he scored should have been kept for when he does it against the top Celtic team at Parkhead maybe in the Scottish Cup) and then Jack Aitchison levelled for Celtic U20 before Paul Crossan fired the winner. Chris Turner was then sent off for the hosts for a foolish gesture to the mostly local Celtic support when he was being subbed which will earn him a meeting with Cowden boss Liam Fox who called the incident "totally unacceptable". It turned out Turner was just on the pitch when he fired off the gesture which meant a red card and no place for the sub who was coming on for him as Cowdenbeath went down to 10 men in the daftest of ways.
Again, this probably would not have happened had the 'occasion' been against a non-Old Firm team and the after match social media of a Celtic persuasion saw Cowden slated for being unable to handle defeat by a young Celtic side, along with what was viewed as a lenient ref outside the red card, while some Blue Brazilians praised their team in the wake of a bad start to their League 2 campaign.
Would the inclusion of Old Firm Colt sides in League 1 and 2 on a regular basis be more trouble than it is worth and would we have teams trying just a little bit too hard around them causing refs to maybe have to work a bit harder in games like the one witnessed at Cowdenbeath?
Tuesday's Challenge Cup tie in Central Fife was not what the SPFL/SFA were looking for when they pitched Premiership youngsters in with part timers in the basement of Scottish football and the experiment should maybe be kept to the one cup competition.
Now last season's top two from Wales and Northern Ireland are pitched into the Irn Bru mix and while there is TV money available again for Scottish teams via the ties with the invited teams the Challenge Cup continues to look like a tournament that is a mixture of pre-season friendlies and trying to please everyone without really impacting positively on anyone.
Fitba' purists will hope when it is all done and dusted the winners of the Challenge Cup in 2016/17 will be a team from Scotland that isn't used to grabbing silverware in the spirit of the original competition which was first played for in 1990 and seemed to do very well thank you before the tweaks inflicted upon it this season.