A woeful first half performance by City's second string is succeeded by a tremendously exciting Dean Windass inspired second half that nearly snatched a replay.  Alas Cup glory is denied for another year and it is Plymouth that progress to Round 4.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

Next season will mark a full twenty years since our last exposure to Round 4 of the FA Cup. That is a pretty dismal record of failure for a club of our stature. And yet yesterday's reverse was about as painless a way to go out of the competition as could be imagined.

Round 3's the place to exit. No deceptive dreams have intruded at such an early stage of the process. Losing to a team close by in the League table is as acceptable as it can be. There’s no sense of humiliation. Getting beaten more-or-less fair and square after a decent game and football: that's how it was yesterday, that's how it should be, if lose we must. And, best of all, the FA Cup matters most when the current League campaign is spluttering to a dismally grey early end. That is not remotely our fate right now.

Clear skies at 3 o clock on an inclement day in Devon in a Home Park crowd swelled above 12,000 by distribution of plenty of cheap seats. The reshuffled Tigers are, gratifyingly, resplendent in our home kit and line up:

Myhill
Doyle Turner Collins Delaney
France Marney Livermore Elliott
Folan Barmby

Some faces who've appeared little this season. France did quite well. The others didn't take their chance. They may not get another.

Damien Delaney, Lion of Cork and honest trier, has improved his game year in, year out with utterly admirable determination. I fear he's reached his limit. It gives me not the slightest pleasure to report it, but there's no recent evidence that he's worth a place in a side flirting with the PlayOffs in Division 2. Yesterday, on 13, he chested a corner back into Myhill's safe gloves. I'd like to tell you that it was a cool piece of defending. But in fact Damo looked utterly perplexed, his startled demeanour that of a man on a pavement who's narrowly missed being mown down by a speeding mountain biker that he never even saw coming. Things happen a bit too fast a bit too often for Damien in this Division.

Long-haired Nalis is (as ever) prominent for them in pulling midfield strings (that was a cliche, wasn't it, but c'mon, it's the Cup, even your match reporters need a bit of relief), and on 14 Easter is set up to surge all too easily through our defensive cover and fire in a low shot that the in-form Myhill does superbly well to stop to his left. On 17 Ebanks-Blake skips past Turner and extracts another fine stop from Boaz. Then on 23 a free-kick is punted into our box, Delaney catastrophically raises a feeble leg, showing neither the vigour required to hoof the ball upfield nor the good sense to boot it behind for a corner, and the ball simply drops invitingly ten yards out from our goal for Abdou to strike a confident left-foot shot across Boaz and inside the far post.

Woeful defending.

Three minutes later and Halmosi, another effective presence in midfield, punts a long free-kick into our box, no one commands the area defensively, Boaz is left flat-footed in the middle of his goal as he expects a touch from a Plym, but instead the ball bounces disregarded into the side netting of his goal. 2-0, and, we reflect with rue, it's a long trip down to Devon to witness a hiding.

I suppose one plausible lesson is that defensive set-ups are collectives. Replace one element and the whole system collapses. Turner, for sure, looked unhappy to be deprived of Wayne Brown's decisive approach alongside him, and I suspect Boaz was similarly inconvenienced. We'd have been defensively weakened even had Collins come in and played well. In fact, Collins came in and played badly. Sell. Doyle wasn't hopeless yesterday, but is not conceivably close to being rated an adequate replacement for Ricketts (whereas France, with extra coaching in defensive arts, may yet be). Then there's Damo, but the Lion deserves better than me banging on again about his inadequacies.

A word for Plymouth.

Contempt.

Another club that has traded in tradition for shiny trinkets. Music after goals. It is NEVER acceptable.

The rest of the first half is largely sloppy, aside from the menacing Folan who troubles Plymouth when offered a glimpse of decent service. On 37 Caleb heads a Livermore corner goalwards, but it's hustled to safety by a Plym. Then, into added time, Marney, hitherto looking sluggish and short of fitness, suddenly produces a terrific through ball and Elliott is released in space behind the Argyle defence. He's tentative, McCormick is allowed to smother his effort, and Barmby's follow-up is also thwarted by the alert keeper.

While we reflect on the likely occupants of the City departure lounge, that now customary early January pastime, let it not be thought that I'm reserving places only for our spare defenders. Stuart Elliott, like Damien Delaney, has done enough in the past to deserve unending respect and admiration from the Hull City support. Yesterday he was a given a chance to show he has something to offer a team heading upwards in our current Division. The chance was not taken. The chance was horribly, spectacularly spurned. Elliott made no impact at all. In that too, I take no pleasure, but I'm not really expecting to see the Ulsterman in black and amber again.

Into the second half and Livermore and Elliott depart, in favour of Garcia and, riding to the rescue like the ageing gunslinger ready for one more showdown, Dean Windass, who this week would be played in a film by Clint Eastwood (though Deano might object to the poncho, just as Clint might not want scraps with his chips). Barmby switches to the left, Garcia goes right and central midfield belongs to Marney and France.

Windass D is, as we know, a joy and a modern miracle. Cherish these days. 40th birthday in sight, and still as committed and enthusiastic as anyone on the pitch. And still as shrewd and extravagantly gifted as anyone who's fallen short of full international status (and better than many who've claimed caps). On 46 - yes, it takes Deano just sixty seconds to make his mark - he sweeps a lovely ball out wide to Delaney on the left who advances, cuts inside on to his right boot and sends a dipping shot towards the top corner, saved at a stretch by McCormick. Crikey! Damo as two-footed speed merchant winger? An implausible, but entertaining, cameo.

The pattern of the game has altered radically and now we are on top and looking serious. Ruthless, even. Garcia is crowded out in the box but soon afterwards a long ball into the box is headed on in super-intelligent style by Nicky Barmby and Windass, finding space like a proper player can, is able to stroke the ball past the keeper from close range. In fact the shot en route brushes the keeper's hands and only just has the pace to cross the line, but Deano meant that. Like the batsman who hits the ball only hard enough to reach the boundary, he conserves his energy. Cos he can.

We're buzzing now, and Plymouth wobbling, and it's frankly a surprise when they re-establish their two goal advantage. A break down the left, a low ball into the box by Halmosi, a melee, a cross-shot into the far corner, 3-1. All this takes place down the far end and it is very hard to get a clear sight of what's afoot and aboot, but obviously enough our defending was again indecisive. A reminder of the Days Before Wayne Brown, who isn't perfect who but who knows how to get his boot through the ball and who knows how to make sure his colleagues do the same.

Two minutes later, it's 3-2.

And it is another masterclass from Dean Windass. Sheffield Wednesday had succumbed to a free-kick of the utmost perfection, now Plymouth must similarly bow the knee. Gloriously struck, curving and dipping to enter the very top corner of the net. Keeper McCormick clutches air, the City support explodes in glee and tribute.

This is now like the Riverside last season and Anfield a few years ago: a game in which we seem to be trudging to a tame defeat has suddenly exploded into life, and the vibrant sense of expectation has shaken the whole ground, but most of all the City end, into vibrant torment.

The weather's in tune with the hysteria as rain sweeps off Dartmoor and belts down over Plymouth, the game's chaotic, the boots are flying and it's a Real Game of Football. With the mighty Dean Windass on the pitch it couldn't really be anything else, now could it.

Plymouth are quelled, Nicky's loving it, so's Deano, we're worth an equaliser. It's feisty, caution has been thrown to the rains. A France handball is ignored and Ryan advances into the box, but shoots over. Garcia, since restoration to the first team, has become a great deal more aggressive and he is in command down the right.

But like those stirring episodes at the Riverside and at Anfield ultimately we're going to come up just short. Into the last ten, and our fury abates. On 83 a rare Plymouth break ends in a skidding low shot, expertly turned away for a corner by Myhill. A couple of minutes later and a run down the left, a cut inside and a shot clubbing meatily against Myhill's far post.

There are five added minutes, and we have possession of the ball for most of them, but a real chance arrives only right at the death. Turner, pushed forward into their box, knocks on a mighty lofted free-kick from Boaz, and Deano and keeper McCormick converge on the loose ball. Credit to the Plym for bravely defying the flying Deano. Game over.

The FA Cup is dead. I mean, the FA Cup in its raging, majestic, seductive past glory is no more, and can never be restored. Teams play second strings, fans don't turn up even when prices are cut. When you see a club with Sunderland's Cuo tradition barely able (yesterday) to attract 20,000 to a Cup tie, there's no room to pretend the competition is anything more than a sideshow. Better than the chucking darts at playing cards. But maybe no better than pitching ping-pong balls into goldfish bowls. Money's to blame, of course, or more precisely the creation of vast disparities between the different levels of English football. Things didn't change a great deal between the abolition of the maximum wage in the early 1960s and the broadcasting revolution of the late 1980s. Fans paying at the gate used to be the main source of the game's revenue and, on the pitch, relegation mattered but could be survived without serious disturbance to the playing squad. Everyone dropped out of the top Division from time to time (except Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal) but the financial price wasn't huge, stronger clubs returned quickly and sometimes rejuvenated by increased gate receipts generated by higher crowds watching a winning team. The League mattered but so did the FA Cup. Not now. Once television and other forms of aggressive marketing and sponsorship brought torrents of new money cascading into the game the best part of two decades ago the gaps between the Divisions, and especially between the self-styled Premiership and the rest, grew at an alarming rate. Relegation from the Premiership now means a swingeing financial curse, the demolition of a playing squad as stars refuse to curtail their ambition to play at the top level; and younger talent is harvested by ruthless former rivals. Clubs can get back up with prudent management, but the obligations of transition far exceed those faced in the past, and the result is that preserving League status now dwarfs in importance everything else. Including the FA Cup.

So be it. Happily this doesn’t mean the tournament won't throw up some good days out. Yesterday was one. About as good as it gets in defeat. While also likely to have been the curtain call for more than one Hull City career.

Back, enticingly, to the League.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Doyle, Turner, Collins, Delaney; France, Marney, Livermore, Elliott; Folan, Barmby.  Subs: Garcia (for Livermore, 46), Windass (for Elliott, 46), Atkinson (for Doyle, 77), Featherstone, Dawson.

Goals: Windass 51, 60

Booked: Marney

Sent Off: None

PLYMOUTH ARGYLE: McCormick, Connolly, Doumbe, Seip, Hodges, Summerfield, Abdou, Nalis, Halmosi, Easter, Ebanks-Blake.  Subs: Sawyer (for Hodges, 61), Jutkiewicz (for Ebanks-Blake, 85), Chadwick (for Summerfield, 89), Larrieu, Fallon.

Goals: Abdou 23; Halmosi 26; Ebanks-Blake 58

Booked: Easter

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  P Taylor

ATTENDANCE: 12,419