There was to be no fairytale giant-killing for Highland League side Formartine United against Partick Thistle yesterday. Their big day out at Firhill was more Stephen King than Hans Christian Andersen as the home side shot down any possibility of cup romance emerging in much the same way that Melania Trump would have if a small, enquiring hand made its way over from the other side of the Presidential bed on inauguration night.

The chill of Maryhill would have been a shock to the system for the Thistle players fresh from sunning themselves in La Manga, but first-half goals from Chris Erskine - who helped himself to a double - and a Stevie Lawless cracker had this one sewn up, with Abdul Osman adding another after the break.

“We treated our opponents with every respect and picked a side to go out and do a professional job and they did that," said satisfied Thistle manager Alan Archibald.

“We were very clinical in the first half so we are delighted, there is always going to be a bigger team slipping up in every round, it always happens that a team drops by the wayside and it was important it wasn’t going to be us.

“The only negative in the game for us was that we didn’t score more, especially in the second half. Our opponents were hard to break down but we were trying to walk the ball into the net and score the perfect goal. But everyone is fit and there are no injuries so it was a good day at the office.”

The play flowed towards the Formartine goal in the early stages, and it seemed only a matter of time before the opening goal arrived.

And arrive it duly did in the tenth minute as Sean Welsh hung a free-kick up towards the back post where Abdul Osman slid it back across goal for Erskine to side-foot home with ease.

The goalscorer fluffed another chance when clean through on Ewen MacDonald before the game hit a bit of a lull, but Lawless sparked it back to life when he played a neat exchange with Welsh before firing low into the bottom corner from 20 yards.

The floodgates looked set to open as Kris Doolan got the ball straight from the re-start and fed Erskine, who drove in behind the static visiting defence and finished calmly beyond MacDonald to put any lingering doubt about the outcome of the match to bed just after the half hour.

The re-emergence of Mustapha Dumbuya after half-time was loudly acclaimed by the Firhill faithful as he made his first appearance of the season after recovering from an Achilles injury, and the pacey full-back showed the home crowd just what they had been missing as he played like an auxiliary right winger for most of the second 45.

His cameo aside though, there was little action to speak of in the opening to the half until Lawless floated in a cross from the right that Osman met on the volley to direct home just after the hour.

Promising Thistle youngster Andy McCarthy was handed his debut, and while Thistle may have scored more, Formartine blew their own late chance as Scott Barbour fired wide after Tomas Cerny had fluffed his kick.

It would have been just reward for the 226 supporters who made the long journey down, and manager Kris Hunter was disappointed not to have given them something to celebrate.

“We were well beaten by a quality team,” he admitted. “We struggled to get near them with their movement of the ball and their rotation in midfield.

“We were desperate to score a goal to give the fans who travelled something to cheer, but it’s been a great run for us.”