Falkirk 0-4 Rangers: No cup upset as Bairns are powerless to resist Premiership leaders

The 4-0 scoreline suggests a one sided encounter and in many ways it was but the Falkirk players approached the game with a positive attitude and kept at their opponents till the final whistle.

This Rangers side have been comfortably seeing off teams in the Premiership since August but did not get an easy evening at the Falkirk Stadium with the Bairns creating chances throughout the match albeit only really testing Jon McLaughlin once.

Before kick off Falkirk knew if they were going to pull off an upset that one thing they couldn’t afford was to concede an early goal but after just five minutes a simple long ball over the top from Connor Goldson picked out Jermaine Defoe and the experienced former England international slid the ball past PJ Morrison.

Falkirk already had a mountain to climb before that goal went in and things went from bad to worse when the visitors doubled their advantage as Calvin Bassey fired home from inside six yards after Morrison had blocked a Cedric Itten header.

The Bairns responded though and on 34 minutes Jon McLaughlin was called in to action for the first time when Mark Durnan rose highest from an Alston corner and forced the Rangers keeper in to a good save to block his header behind for a corner.

That gave the visitors a warning that Falkirk weren’t going out of the cup without some kind of fight but the tie was as good as over five minutes before the break when Borna Barisic rifled in a sublime free kick from 20 yards giving Morrison no hope and putting Ranger 3-0 up at the break.

Falkirk conceded five minutes in to the first half and it was the same in the second half when Barisic whipped in a cross from the right flank and Tavernier volleyed across goal and in to the far corner for 4-0.

That was it for the scoring but despite the tie being gone the Bairns kept going and continued the game at a decent pace but unfortunately could not find a goal for their efforts.