There are plenty of football clubs who have followed up a historic cup final win with a first hurdle fall the following season.
Coventry City going out to non-league Sutton United the year after their 1988 FA Cup triumph is one that springs straight to mind.
And the fact that Jim McIntyre flagged up his own experience at Kilmarnock in the late 90s, when they were sent crashing in their first round, showed you that the Ross County boss was certainly a believer that with an unexpected trophy win comes greater pressure as reigning champions.
I’ll bet there were plenty of pessimists in Perth as well.
Let’s face it, most Saints fans believed they were cursed in cup competitions so to do well the season after they won their first one in over 100 years would be hoped for rather than expected.
In the build-up to Saturday’s match though the players and manager sounded like men who would thrive on the challenge of showing lightning can strike twice, and the performance against Ross County backed it up.
There was a spell in the second half when County had them on the ropes, but on the whole, this was a confident and attack-minded Perth side who deserve to be among the four or five favourites to win the trophy.
By the time the next round is played influential duo Steven MacLean and Tam Scobbie are expected to be back, and this could well be a top six in the Premiership team in even better form than they are just now.
Rather than trotting out the names of provincial clubs who have made a mess of their cup defence, we might want to start looking for the few who have managed to emulate it.