Kiltie hopes new pitch will banish narrative

Kilmarnock's Greg Kiltie hopes the club's new pitch will change the narrative over their home form and the theory that their old artificial surface gave them a huge advantage. The artificial pitch at Rugby Park has been ripped up and replaced with a state of the art grass-hybrid pitch, which gets its first airing this Sunday with the visit of Celtic. And the 29-year-old is hopeful the Ayrshire club can keep up their strong home record on the new pitch. "We've had a great home record over the last couple of seasons," he said. "You don't want to put it down to astroturf, so it would be nice to go out and prove that it was us playing well. It probably does come into play that you want to prove that. "Everybody's seen it [the pitch] for the first time, but it looks incredible. So, just really looking forward to being out there and hopefully we've got a performance to match how good that looks. "There's no point in having that out there and going out and being rubbish on it." Kiltie who's also relishing his role as club captain for the new season, admits they need to "rectify" their poor performance against St Johnstone, when they lost 4-3, as they prepare to host last season's champions. "Obviously we were disappointed last weekend with the performance," Kiltie added. "We just lacked a bit of intensity in certain areas. " "So we look to rectify them this weekend." "Collectively we thought we all could have done better. So, it's about working together this weekend and as I said, it's just about moving forward and making sure that we play better." Killie played out two frustrating home games against Celtic last season, with the Glasgow club sealing 90th minute wins on both occasions. And Kiltie is aware of the threat they'll bring again. "They're the reigning champions for a reason," he added. "I think last year, even here, when we went two goals up, they showed their resilience to come back. You just know they're never out of the game."