Dundee romped into the last eight of the Scottish Cup with their biggest win of the season and were then rewarded with a home tie against city rivals United in the next round.
The Dark Blues emphatically took care of First Division pacesetters Morton, who hadn’t lost away from home in any competition before this match.
Dundee boss Barry Smith is excited about the derby, scheduled for March 2 or 3.
“It’s a great draw,” he said. “We’ve obviously played United twice this season in the league and in the last game we didn’t think there was all that much between the two sides. But every game is different and this is a cup tie so anything can happen on the day.
“It’s some draw for the whole city as these fixtures are always special.”
The Morton match was tied at 1-1 at half-time but Smith’s men ran away from their opponents from just after the hour mark, with four strikes in less than 20 minutes to make it 5-1.
Their five goals came from five different goalscorers and one of them was Colin Nish.
He was thrilled to end a barren run, even if he didn’t know much about the header which got Dundee their third.
Nish said: “When you’ve not been scoring as a striker you say you’d happily take one off your bum to go in. In my case it was my head!
“It was great to get on the scoresheet for the first time since just before Christmas.”
Dundee’s other scorers were Jim McAlister, Lewis Toshney, John Baird and Declan Gallagher, while Michael Tidser found the net for Morton.
Smith said: “Everyone looked to take the ball and get involved. Hopefully we can now take confidence from this win.”
Morton boss Allan Moore reflected: “They scored four goals from dead balls, which isn’t good enough.”
For a full match report, see Monday’s Courier or try our new digital edition.