A ‘perfect’ away performance has set Partick Thistle up for Pittodrie and a crack at Hampden glory according to their central defender who was part of a Scottish Cup winning team just two years ago.

Danny Devine agreed with boss Alan Archibald’s assessment of the way they had played at Dens Park on Wednesday when he gave it that tag, but says they have now set a new benchmark for themselves after ending Dundee’s four month unbeaten home run in the Premiership which started after Thistle’s previous visit in October.

“We’ve won 1-0. It shows that we’ve put in a real hard shift, especially coming here after the goals Dundee have been scoring. They’ve been on a bit of a run themselves, but to get that clean sheet, and get the one nil win like the gaffer says it was a perfect away performance,” said the central defender.

“I thought the lads were outstanding but that’s the standard we’ve set now, we’ve just got to be consistent and keep doing it every week.”

Devine was in the Inverness Jags line-up when they beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final two years ago on the way to picking up the club’s first piece of major silverware by beating Falkirk in the final and he sees considerable similarity in the way he and his current team-mates are going about their business.

“We had quality players there just like we have here,” he said.

“I came here in the summer and looked at the squad and around the changing room and I saw that same quality so hopefully we can put a run together, keep looking up the table and climbing as high as we can and hopefully the cup run happens for us.”

He noted, too, that there is plenty of recent evidence of what can happen.

“What’s the point in being in the competition if you can’t win it?” he asked, rhetorically.

“We’ve seen with the likes of Ross County, Inverness, St Johnstone that teams like that can win it.”

Devine’s cup final winning captain Graeme Shinnie will be on the other side this time around and he acknowledged that he will also be harbouring hopes of another run to the final.

“Obviously we had great times at Inverness together but all that goes out the window,” said Devine.

“He’ll be looking to win the game, I’ll be looking to win the game and may the best team win on Sunday.”

Even without home advantage Aberdeen would have been seen as favourites to win Sunday’s quarter-final and while Devine is hoping Thistle might be catching them at the right time following their shock defeat at Hamilton in midweek, he knows that is unlikely to be a major factor.

“Obviously we’ve been to Pittodrie a couple of times and I feel we’ve been a hit unlucky,” he said.

“Aberdeen have quality players throughout their team but it was a bad result for them against Hamilton in midweek, so hopefully we can go there and their heads are down and we can capitalise on that.

“I don’t think that’ll be the case, though. It’s a big cup game and their fans will get behind them, but if we can go on and put in a similar performance we’ve got a good chance.

“From the first game of the season anywhere we’ve gone we’ve felt like we can get a result. Sometimes things just don’t happen but we feel like we owe them one. We’ve had a couple of close games against them this season and we’re definitely in confident mood, we’re definitely going to go there in confident mood and go for the win.”