It's clearly deliberate too, to give the big teams a better chance to progress. Nobody would consider it beneficial from a sporting perspective. They'll have clearly considered it and assumed that the bigger teams that might drop into the playoffs will likely be less affected by missing a player or two. They probably also know that the bigger teams will have had less yellow cards over the qualifying. I understand that Clarke has to remain focused, but it should be called out publicly by someone at the SFA.
I'd actually liked to have seen guys like McGinn, Adams, Gilmour, Robertson, Tierney be told to go and pick up a deliberate booking against Moldova to rule them out for tonight's game rather than the playoff semi. It's such a difficult balance, but I think that a seeding with one or two of our better players missing is just as difficult as being unseeded with no players missing, and there's a very good chance that we're both unseeded and have players missing. Not only that, but a suspension would have wiped the bookings count for the playoffs, which is vital. I could see McGinn or Tierney get through tonight's match without a booking, but I can't see them get through two games without picking up a single yellow, so I think we should have taken the hit and let a few of the fringe players like McLean, Nisbet etc have a free run at it tonight with the pressure very much off.
To be honest, I wouldn't even trust Dykes not to pick up two bookings in two games!