Ranking semi-final defeats in order of hardest to bear isn’t a game Dave Mackay would recommend for a spare few minutes.
But unfortunately, it’s one familiar to him and to anyone who has been connected with St Johnstone for a few years or more.
The Perth skipper at least has the consolation of having made it through to one final as a player, but he has only known hurt in recent times.
And Mackay would much rather spend Sunday night mulling over where a win against Aberdeen figures in terms of career highs (probably at the top, you would imagine) as opposed to putting another heart-breaking defeat into context.
“There’s no worse time to lose a cup game because you’re one game away from the final,” he said.
“Hopefully this is our time. I’ve won one before with Dundee, but it was a while ago now. You think these things are going to come round all the time, but, as I’ve been shown, they definitely don’t.
“The Aberdeen defeat in the League Cup was up there as the worst feeling. But the Motherwell one was worse though.
“In the Aberdeen game we actually played not too bad but against Motherwell the game was over after 10 minutes. So that one was a little bit worse.
“I lost one with Dundee against Livingston when we conceded a penalty in the last minute of extra-time. That was a tough one to take, especially when we saw the final. I think we’d have gone on to beat that Hibs team in the final, like Livingston did.”
“Then when I went to Livingston I lost one or two there, and of course there’s been a few here at St Johnstone. I’m not counting! It will be five or six, anyway,” said Mackay.
“It doesn’t matter what way you lose. The end result is the same, and you feel sick. You’re in a bad mood for days. It’s the same for players, management, staff and fans. It takes a wee while to get over them.”
Mackay believes that Saints got the perfect therapy at Station Park for their 4-0 defeat to Aberdeen in February.
“You have to try and look to the next game,” he pointed out.
“The fact that we had Forfar in the Scottish Cup the week after Aberdeen was a good thing, looking back. It meant we could get another cup run going.”
Mackay is confident that the Saints team which takes the pitch at Ibrox won’t be weighed down by St Johnstone’s history of Scottish Cup semi-final failure.
He pointed out: “A lot of the players won’t be affected because they weren’t at the club.
“Obviously, there was the Aberdeen match a couple of months ago, but hopefully we have learned a lesson from that one. The biggest lesson is not to make silly mistakes.
“We gifted them the first three goals and you can’t afford to do that against anybody. Aberdeen are the second best team in the league, and if we do it again, they’ll punish us again.
“We’ll take a bit of confidence from our second half performance at Aberdeen in the league as well.”