Partick Thistle 5 Accies 1: Tennent's Scottish Cup Round 4: 7 February 2004

Partick Thistle 5 Hamilton Accies 1

Firhill, Glasgow, 7 February 2004

Tennent's Scottish Cup Round 4

Report by Gilbert Mowat

There's no easy way to say it, but Accies were well beaten by Partick Thistle on Saturday. This was a great opportunity for a cup upset - the home team hadn't been playing well and there was a good turnout of fans from Hamilton. But in poor conditions Accies never really got going against superior opposition.

Manager Allan Maitland resisted the temptation to tinker with his winning formation, which meant that Ryan Blackadder had to be content with a place on the bench. John Gemmell was cup-tied and Derek Ferguson wasn't even on the bench.

Accies competed pretty well for most of the first half but without creating any real opportunities in front of goal. To be honest, they were being given a bit of a runabout by the Thistle team, who were very unlucky when a close range shot by Kenny Milne thumped off the bar just before the half hour. The opening goal was only delayed by a few minutes, when Jamie Mitchell scored with a low shot from just inside the area. Prior to that, Dave McEwan had done well a couple of times to deny James Grady.

If the half time score had an air of respectability about it, the events of the second half showed that Accies will have to improve a fair bit if they want to compete at a higher level. In a bit of a blizzard, the home team scored four easy goals in the second period, with two of them unhappily coming from player manager Gerry Britton from close range. It was difficult to determine if they had been good goals or not from our position in the away stand, but the defence did look to be a bit static when faced with the nippy Thistle forwards. I am sure that there will be lovely descriptions of the goals available elsewhere!

The only crumb of comfort for Accies came right at the end of injury time when Mark Corcoran scored from close range from an excellent cross by fellow substitute Stevie Convery. The fact that were able to maintain their scoring record was only a meagre consolation as they really got a showing up in this game. The players left the field to applause from the Accies fans. If their performance in this game didn't really merit it then at least it will have given them some encouragement for the game against Stenhousemuir on Tuesday.

Partick Thistle: Arthur, Murray, Madaschi, Milne, McBride, Mitchell, Rowson, Ian Ross, Billy Gibson, Britton, Grady. Subs: Langfield, Anis, Bonnes, Andy Gibson, Fleming.

Hamilton: McEwan, Whiteford, Hodge, Thomson, Lumsden, Arbuckle, Carrigan, Aitken, Quitongo, McPhee, Sherry. Subs: Jellema, Walker, Corcoran, Convery, Blackadder.

Referee: K Toner

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