St Mirren captain Stephen McGinn has insisted that the Paisley side will head to Pittodrie this weekend looking to give Aberdeen a game.

Having established a dominant lead in the Championship following the 2-0 win over Dumbarton on Saturday that gave Saints an eight-point lead at the top, Jack Ross’ side will now turn their focus to Scottish Cup duty.

Aberdeen go into the tie on the back of a sunshine break in the heat of Dubai but for McGinn, going into the game on the back of a solid run of form is the more appealing proposition.

“That feeling we have got now is good,” said the St Mirren captain who netted his first goal of the season at the weekend. “I wouldn’t swap that for anything. They have earned the right to go and enjoy a bit of sunshine on their back but we feel pretty good about ourselves just now. They are a tough team to play against but we are in a good place just now and hopefully we can go and put up a strong display.

“They have been the second best team in the country for the last three or four years. It is the second toughest of venue that we could have got so I think we know that we need to be at our best if we are to go into the hat for the next round.

“We have nothing to lose. We will work on our game plan all week. The game is on TV which is good and it is up to us to go there and show why we are top of this league.

“I think it helps going there given where we are just now. We have become used to winning games and we have built up a good bit of momentum.

“Everyone knows that winning games is a good habit to be in and we will go there looking to give a really strong account of ourselves. We certainly won’t be up there to park the bus and sit back, we will be going looking to play a bit of football and enjoy it.”

Cammy Smith opened the scoring before McGinn confirmed the points at Dumbarton. The heavy pitch made for difficult conditions but McGinn has revealed that a chat in the warm-up gave Saints the passage to engineer the win over Stevie Aitken’s side.

“The pitch was soft and it was difficult to stay on your feet at times but what we did notice in the warm-up was that although it was such a bad pitch, the ball wasn’t actually bouncing,” he said.

“We knew that if we could move the ball quickly between us then we could hurt them with the pace that we have got and we could attack.

“It actually suited us and we were able to use it to our advantage.”

And McGinn also believes that Lewis Morgan, who will head to Celtic at the end of the season, is causing all sorts of discomfort for Championship teams given the confidence he is playing with at the minute.

“Teams are rightly terrified of Lewis [Morgan] because he can go inside or outside so we just knew that if we fed him with the ball that we would get a lot of joy down that side,” said the Saints captain. “He will terrify any team in this league.”

For the second week in succession, St Mirren’s quest was helped by the fact that Dundee United dropped points.

“It is nice to come in and see that you have extended the lead but it was pleasing just to go to Dumbarton and play well,” said McGinn. “Historically it is a venue that we haven’t done too well as a club so we were delighted to play so well.”