Former Don Niall McGinn expects a fired-up Aberdeen at Morton
The Dons are back on cup duty on Saturday when they travel to Cappielow to face Championship side Morton in the Premier Sports Cup.
McGinn knows how it feels to bring silverware to Pittodrie having been part of the League Cup winning team of 2014.
The former Northern Ireland international insists winning silverware for the Dons for the first time in 19 years whetted the appetite for more cup finals during his time at Pittodrie – and he expects it will have the same effect on the class of 2025.
McGinn said: 'Aberdeen have to have that hunger.
'There's no better opportunity than experiencing the Scottish Cup win last season and then welcoming in new lads.
'Having seen what the club has done should give you that hunger and fire in the bellies straight away, because if you're at a club like Aberdeen, you have to be challenging for cups.
'Yes, in the league you are trying to be consistent and finish as high up the table as you can.
'But the importance of getting to Hampden was always driven into me and into the players when I was there.
'Once you get to Hampden, with a wee bit of luck along the way, anything can happen, and you've seen that in May when they won the Scottish Cup.
'To get to these finals, you have to go to difficult venues like Aberdeen face on Saturday at Morton, so I'm sure the manager will be getting the messages across and trying to build on the cup success last season.'
McGinn, who returned to Scottish football last season with Morton, knows Dougie Imrie's side will be full of belief they can cause an upset and knock the Dons out of the competition on Saturday.
The Peterhead attacker says the Ton's recent cup record shows they can be formidable opponents at Cappielow.
The 38 year-old said: 'Morton will be feeling probably confident, knowing Aberdeen have slacked off in the first two games of the season.
'It will be a very tough game for obviously both teams, and Aberdeen's perspective, they just need to get back to winning ways and they will see this game as their opportunity to do that.
'But, knowing the sort of club Morton are it's going to be a tough test.
'It's a small pitch and Morton have shown over the course of the last number of years they can cause teams problems.
'They've had good results against the likes of Motherwell in the Scottish Cup last year and they pushed Hearts all the way in the quarter-final as well.
'They'll want to make it difficult for Aberdeen, and the manager will have them well organised.
'They have good players there and it's got all the ingredients for being a very good game.'
McGinn returned to Scottish football when he joined Morton on loan from Glentoran a year ago and looks back on his season at the Championship club with fondness.
The former Don, who opened his account for the Blue Toon when he scored in their 4-2 win against Aberdeen B in the KDM Evolution Trophy at Balmoor Stadium on Tuesday, said: 'I enjoyed it at Morton.
'I was enjoying being back in Ireland, but the opportunity came back to go to the Scottish Championship, which is a good league, competitive league.
'Every team was full-time, and I just thought 'why not? Let's go and give it an opportunity' and I enjoyed it.
'It was a bit of an up-and-down season but we comfortably stayed in the league.
'We got to the stage towards the end of the season where we were sort of out of the play-offs, but definitely not going to get relegated.
'I'm glad of the opportunity. I ended up coaching the 18s for about three months as well, which was pleasing for me.'
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