The Ipswich game really annoyed me as that was a great chance to get to the semi finals and we had a good chance to win it.
Totally agree, RDM made a bad call that night with his team selection and it was a real opportunity missed to progress to the Semi-Finals of a major Cup competition.
Appreciate hindsight is a wonderfull thing but when we travelled to Ipswich we were not embroiled in a relegation fight (that came later in the season - after being knocked out of both the Cups) and Ipswich were knocking around the bottom third of the Championships at the time if I recall correctly.
Personally it infuriates me when so many supporters of clubs like Albion virtually encourage coaches to pick weakened squads for the Cup games and seem to buy into the media hype that the Premiership (or Premiership status) is the be all and end all for clubs of our size and status, and the other fallacy that a domestic Cup run will somehow be to the detriment of league form or rattle on about the club not being prepared for the relatively few extra matches.
If an opportunity arises I think we should go for it and treat Cup matches in the same manner as key Premiership games but I can guarantee, if the worst came to the worst and we were struggling a bit next season (I don't think this will be the case but you can't rule it out) then come the Cup games, there will be a general consensus that we should "concentrate on the league" and give the fringe players a run out - leaving a relatively free run to the usual top 5 clubs to have a leisurely stroll to the final and rack up yet another piece of silverware to add to the boringly long list of previous trophies.
If we were to get to a major Cup Final we'd have a day out that none of us would ever forget, and imagine the wild celebrations if we were to actually win - it would provide the kind of memories we'd be telling our grandkids about, rather than just being another day out at Wembley for your average Man U / Chelsea fan.
We should be giving the Cups exactly the same priority as the League games in my view.