Airdrieonians gaffer Rhys McCabe heaped praise on his side's performance and admits he hopes that gives them the confidence boost needed to mount a Championship survival push.

A five-star display against Dumbarton saw five different players find the net in their 5-1 away win against Dumbarton. And the gaffer joked that he wants to face Barcelona in the next round.

The visitors got things rolling early on as neat finishes from Lewis McGrattan and Gavin Gallagher inside 10 minutes eased any nerves.

While they controlled much of the play, they had to wait for a late flurry of goals to finally put the tie to bed. Chris Mochrie darted in from the left flank to sweep home Airdrie's third on 74 minutes and barely 60 seconds later Ben Wilson latched onto a sclaffed Mark Durnan clearance to roll the ball into the empty net.

A Craig Watson back post header made it five with the hosts nabbing a late consolation as Craig McGuffie fired home from distance.

READ MORE: Five star Airdrie ease into Scottish Cup fifth round with emphatic win over Dumbarton

A delighted McCabe said: "It’s very pleasing to get a few goals and a massive boost to our confidence.

“Massive credit to the boys. We set ourselves small targets beforehand and we knew we had to approach the game in the proper manner.

“We felt it was really important that we set the tone from the off and we did that with a couple of early goals.

“That built a bit of confidence into the game and we were clinical - although me being me, I wanted to see a wee bit more but they could be forgiven with the pitch cutting up.

“We’re delighted to get such a good result at a difficult ground on a tight pitch against a team that didn’t have anything to lose.

"The message at the start of the second half was not to sit off and to go and get that third goal to kill the game. We got that and then we were able to pick them off with our quality later on."

Airdrie are now in the hat for Monday's fifth round draw, with McCabe joking: "I’ll take Barca. We’re not in control of these situations, obviously a glamour tie is one that the club would like but there’s still a few clubs around our level.

"We’ll see who we get and we’ll go into it with the mindset of trying to cause an upset if it’s one of the big dogs and try to get ourselves in the hat for the next round.”