AYR United advanced to the quarter-finals of the SPFL Trust Trophy with a hard-fought home win against Peterhead on Saturday – with manager Scott Brown insisting the result was all that mattered.

United progressed to the last eight of the competition after seeing off the League Two side at Somerset Park, as goals in either half from Jamie Murphy and Ethan Walker ensured a 2-1 victory after Kieran Shanks reduced the deficit with half an hour to play.

Brown praised the impact of new signing Connor McLennan after the 25-year-old winger was announced on Friday night on a deal until the end of the season.

And while the Ayr boss admitted his team’s performance could have been better on the day, he was pleased to get through a tricky tie.

He said: “The main thing, the main focus no matter what happened, was to get through to the next round.

“You always know it’s a cup final for the smaller teams but I thought they played really well.

“The main thing for us was our lads didn’t underestimate what we were going to be up against. They’re well drilled, they’re well organised, they’ve got some great players that have played in the [Premiership] as well.

“It was a really good, tough game, which we want as well. We want to make it interesting but could we have controlled the game a little bit more? I think we could have.

“Can we make better decisions at the time? Of course, we can always do that. We’re always going to ask for that little bit better, but at the same time, the main focus was to make sure we got through.”

Brown welcomed the return of Murphy to the starting lineup and stated his hope that the experienced forward, and new man McLennan, can bring the “composure and quality” – and goals – missing from an injury-hit United squad.

Ethan Walker scored the deciding goal on SaturdayEthan Walker scored the deciding goal on Saturday (Image: Gary Bradley) The gaffer also looked ahead to Ayr’s return to Championship football this weekend, with a difficult match against Davie Martindale’s Livingston next up in a battle between second and third in the table.

Brown added: “Davie’s got them well organised as always, they will play and they’ve got some big units as well.

“Physically it’s going to be a huge fight for us but at the same time both teams want to play football, they want to be in possession of the ball.

“The main thing for us is we get goals and we win games, we want to win every game we go into, we believe we can go and win every game.

“It’s now about bouncebackability; we won against Peterhead, it maybe wasn’t as pretty as we wanted it to be but still we managed to get the win.

“We’ve got Livi here next week and hopefully we can get those three points as well.”

Saturday’s game at Somerset Park kicks off at 3pm.

Meanwhile, the draw for the quarter and semi-finals of the SPFL Trust Trophy will be made on Wednesday, October 16 at 1pm.