Alan Cochrane @ Rugby Park

These are two teams with the length of the league between them, and for almost all of this game, it certainly looked like it. With a goal in each half, for over 80 minutes United were in a comfort zone, leaving Kilmarnock nowhere to go in mid-field, running us up blind alleys, but themselves breaking quickly and economically, and always looking dangerous.

Barry Robson scored after half an hour, when Jamie Hamill had spurned several chances to clear the danger on the right, and when the ball was played into the middle, the United winger beat Frazer Wright to the cross, and smacked a low shot past the advancing Combe. It looked completely tied up just after the hour mark, when Corrigan got in Combe's way going for a Robson cross, and Conroy was able to head the ball into the empty net.

In a late flurry, Wales did pull one back for Kilmarnock, when he volleyed in a cross from Fernandez, and Zaluska did save a Hamill header right at the end, but there was no zip behind it, and apart from the goal, that was about Killie's first direct strike on goal. It was all too little too late.

Killie's plans had been upset right from the start when Mehdi Taouil pulled up during the warm-up, and he was replaced by Allan Johnston from the start, but in truth, we had too many players miss-firing and stuttering on the day. At the start both sides tried to get forward, there were lots of corners at both ends, and there was plenty of effort, but United always looked the more composed and confident, while Killie were tentative and much more liable to play square than attack quickly.

Five minutes after United's opener, Simon Ford did get the ball in the net, but it was adjudged offside, and that chance to raise the spirits was gone. At the other end, on the stroke of half time, Alan Combe pulled off a wonderful one handed save from a Dillon header, which meant that we turned round only one goal down.

So if Craig Levein was happy with the result, and quite content to brush off questions about Barry Robson's future, Jim Jefferies was not so sanguine. To him, the first half summed it up - the difference between a team that is going well and one that is short of confidence. The goals were bad ones to lose, too many players had too much tension, and although it was more successful at the end with two wingers, it was too little too late. Still, there's a chance to put it right on Monday.

Kilmarnock: Combe, Hay, Fowler, Ford, Wright, Invincibile Di Giacomo (Gibson), Hamill, Bryson (Fernandez), Corrigan, Johnston (Wales)

Dundee United: Zaluska, Dillon, Dods, Flood, Kerr, Grainger, Hunt, Robson, Conway (De Vries), Gomis (Baubin), Kenneth

Referee: Kenny Clark