Boss Lee Clark hopes to take advantage of the William Hill Scottish Cup weekend to steal a march on Kilmarnock's league rivals.

With the fifth-round ties taking place over Saturday and Sunday the only Ladbrokes Premiership match is between Killie - knocked out by Hamilton in the previous round - and Dundee in a recheduled fixture at Dens Park.

The Ayrshire side are in eighth place in the table, behind sixth-placed Motherwell on goal difference and Clark is looking for his side to take the opportunity to move into the top half.

"I would love to have been in the cup," he said.

"In an ideal world you wouldn't have wanted this situation but it is there and we felt it was the right thing to do to move the game and we have to make it count in our favour.

"It is the only league game going on in the top level so hopefully we can continue our level of performance from the last couple of games and get the three points which would obviously put us into the top six and put a bit of space between us and the two teams at the bottom.

"There is a lot of incentives but the hardest thing is the game itself.

"We know that they are a tough team and have had some good results this season and bounced back from some setbacks so we understand that it is a tough match.

"But we are unbeaten in three in the league, we want to keep the run going and keep getting the confidence levels up because there are a lot of the players playing well and collectively they look a decent side at times."

With only six points separating the bottom seven teams in the league, Clark is aware of the importance of a top-half finish before the split.

He said: "It is there for everyone. We all have the incentive to get in there before the split.

"The league table is ridiculously tight but if we can get our house in order and do our job properly we can get the points that can take us further up the league."