JOE McKee couldn’t have got his Morton career off to a worse start than a shock cup loss to lower league Annan Athletic at Galabank on his competitive debut.

That summer’s day in July 2013 is one the midfielder remembers only too well and one that will have him fired up to go and make sure there is no repeat when the sides meet again this afternoon.

It was as part of Allan Moore’s new-look Ton side that he was dumped out of the Ramsdens Cup when a recently released Peter Weatherson netted a second-half free-kick to upset his former side.

McKee, therefore, certainly didn’t need the recent 4-1 fourth-round thrashing of Hamilton Accies to alert him how difficult today’s Scottish Cup tie would be.

Yet although the 23-year-old’s previous experience against the League Two side has provided him with a window into what to expect this afternoon, he does not foresee Ton making the same mistakes.

According to the midfielder, this group are far better placed to avoid a banana skin and have already proven they are capable of negotiating tricky away ties by winning at Albion Rovers and Livingston already this term.

And he believes another battling performance will be the order of the day against Annan as the Cappielow club attempt to reach the quarter-finals.

He told the Tele: “It was a great result for them beating Hamilton 4-1 in the last round and it was obviously a shock as well.

“Watching the highlights showed how hard they worked and they obviously started at a high tempo — I think they were 1-0 up after three or four minutes.

“So it will be something we need to be aware of going down there. We obviously had a bad experience against Spartans last year but we’ve learned from that.

“My first game for Morton was against Annan in the match we lost down there. We had about 25 chances in that game and just couldn’t score — I should have had a hat-trick.

“Big Spoonsy scored a free-kick late on and killed us, so we’ll be going to get the right result and make sure that doesn’t happen this time.

“It’s a smaller park, an astroturf park but that shouldn’t bother us because we train on astroturf, and when we went there that time we had just put a whole new team together.

“But I think it’s completely different now going back there. We’ve got a settled side now with a few more experienced boys, so it’s a game we’re looking forward to even though we know it’ll be hard.

"I mean, we went to difficult places likes Albion Rovers, where the conditions weren’t great, and Livingston, which was physical and quite demanding.

“So we’ll go to Annan and try and put our stamp on the game and try and get through to the next round. It’s going to be a tough game. 

“They’re going to be physical and right in our faces and if we can match that, which I’m sure we will do, then we’ll have a chance of going through.”