St Mirren suffered just a third league defeat of the cinch Premiership season as the Buddies fell to a 4-0 loss at Dens Park.
First-half goals from Amadou Bakayoko and Zak Rudden had the hosts 2-0 in-front at the interval. Bakayoko scored his second and Dundee's third early into the second-half before susbstitute Zach Robinson to cap off a disappointing afternoon for Saints.
Stephen Robinson was forced into one change from the side that drew 2-2 with Hibernian on Wednesday night. Mark O'Hara missed out with illness and was replaced by Keanu Baccus. Marcus Fraser took the captain's armband.
The hosts had a big opportunity to take an early lead when Zak Rudden beat Richard Taylor to the ball and raced one-on-one with Zach Hemming. But the Dundee forward cracked his effort off the post.
Dundee would go in front when they opened the scoring on 16 minutes. Taylor's attempted clearance from a corner fell straight to the feet of Bakayoko who fired into the net.
Saints' first decent chance came on 22 minutes after a good passage of play saw the ball worked to Conor McMenamin on the right-hand side. The forward cut inside and got his shot away but he didn't get enough on it as it drifted harmlessly wide.
The Buddies were moving the ball about well enough in the first 45 but hadn't done enough to trouble Dundee goalkeeper Trevor Carson and in the final minute of the half, the home side were awarded a penalty with Fraser penalised for a handball. Rudden took and sent Hemming the wrong way to double the home side's advantage.
The manager made four changes at the interval with Charles Dunne, Lewis Jamieson, Toyosi Olusanya and Alex Greive introduced in place of Taylor, McMenamin, Greg Kiltie and Mikael Mandron.
Dundee added a third a little over 10 minutes into the second-half. A quick break saw Bakayoko feed the ball wide to Rudden who charged down the right. His shot was saved by Hemming but fell to the feet of Bakayoko who knocked into an empty net.
Thierry Small came on for Caolan Boyd-Munce with a little under 20 minutes remaining and he had a massive chance to pull a goal back within a minute of his introduction. It was a brilliant ball in from Jamieson which met the loanee at the far post but he crashed his effort off the bar. Two minutes later, the roles were reversed when Small turned provider for Jamieson, but the Youth Academy graduate sent his strike over the bar.
Dundee added a fourth with five minutes of normal time remaining after hitting Saints on the counter. Luke McCowan broke clear and shuffled the ball across to substitute Robinson who knocked beyond Hemming to round off a poor afternoon for the Buddies.
Full-Time: Dundee 4-0 St Mirren
St Mirren: Hemming, Fraser (c), Gogic, Taylor (Dunne 46), Strain, Baccus, Boyd-Munce (Small 71), Tanser, McMenamin (Jamieson 46), Mandron (Olusanya 46), Kiltie (Greive 46)
Subs Not Used: Urminsky, Bolton, Flynn, Nahmani
Dundee: Carson, Portales, Shaughnessy (c), Lamie, McGhee (Kerr 89), Cameron, Boateng, McCowan, Beck, Bakayoko (Pineda 90), Rudden (Robinson 81)
Subs Not Used: Legzdins, Reilly, Robertson, Howley, Donnelly, Sylla
Referee: Matthew MacDermid
Assistant Referee: Daniel McFarlane
Assistant Referee: Andy Milne
Fourth Official: Graham Grainger
VAR: Andrew Dallas
Attendance: 5,496 (772 away fans)
