There was, in this thumping win, a measure of revenge for St Mirren.
Unceremoniously huckled out of the quarter-finals of this competition last season by Ayr United, Danny Lennon's side were unlikely to be caught out again and made sure of their progress to the third round in fine style.
Lennon proclaimed himself satisfied afterwards, but the manager of the Paisley club still found pain in the memory of last term despite the five goals his side scored.
Lewis Guy started the rout, racing on to Paul McGowan's slide-rule pass to open the scoring after 16 minutes and Steven Thompson doubled the hosts' lead on the half-hour mark. A wonderful individual effort from McGowan stretched the Paisley side's advantage to three before Kenny McLean added a fourth from the penalty spot.
The visitors pulled one back through Michael Moffat before the break but St Mirren added a fifth through Gary Teale after 58 minutes.
"First and foremost I'm delighted to get through," said Lennon. "The application was great and the statistics would be very positive in terms of possession, corners and the most important one, the five at the beginning of the scoreline.
"We are a little disappointed with the little slip-up with Sammy [Craig Samson] but that gave us the tools to come out in the second half and build on our half-time display.
"Tonight's result doesn't make up for losing to Ayr in the cup last season, I regarded that as a massive missed opportunity, however I am very pleased with how we did this time round. We gave Ayr the utmost respect and I think that showed."
That they could have scored more was pleasing for Lennon, too. Thompson was denied by an excellent goalline block from Darren Brownlie and, with four minutes remaining, McGowan almost added a sixth following some wonderful build-up play between Thompson and Teale.
For Ayr, the defeat was in keeping with their slow start to the campaign. Manager Mark Roberts was downbeat at his second division side's first-half display, with Ayr trailing 4-0 after 38 minutes, and he confessed he was worried the result could end up embarrassing.
"When that fourth goal went in I wanted the ground to eat me up," said Roberts. "[Michael] Moffat's goal was our first chance in the game and it was through a mistake from Craig Samson that we managed to score. We got a response from the guys in the second half after changing things though and I was pleased with that."
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