East Kilbride boss Kevin Rutkiewicz is full of admiration for Lowland League champions Bonnyrigg Rose, but is desperate to take points off them on Saturday.
Rutkiewicz says Rose have hit the standard that he aspires to achieve with Kilby, but doesn't want them to come to K-Park at the weekend thinking that they'll enjoy an inevitable victory.
Kilby set themselves up for the clash with a 4-0 Lowland League Cup group stages win at Dalbeattie Star last night, which has earned them a quarter-final clash with Berwick Rangers on April 23.
But Rutkiewicz wants his side to be on top form when they host the champions.
He said: "I was at their game on Tuesday night against the Spartans in the South Challenge Cup semi-final [4-1 win for Rose] and you can see why they've won the league, to be honest.
"Looking at my team right now, which is far different from the squad at the beginning of the season, because I've got a lot of young boys in there, and looking at Bonnyrigg... for loss of better words, what you've got is 'big, hairy ar**d men'.
"I could have taken that 11 at the Bonnyrigg game and I'm probably looking at something between 1500 and 2000 appearances between them!
"You can see how they manage games of football - the important headers, the important tackles that need to be won. They put their bodies in there and they win them.
"Robbie Horn, for the last three years, has been slowly nurturing and manipulating that squad to the way he wants it, and he's done a fantastic job, so that's what we're all aspiring to. Let's not kid ourselves on, here.
"I'm not going to sit here and say we're the best team in the league. People say 'on paper' but that doesn't matter.
"Bonnyrigg have won the league, they've won it comfortably, and right now they've set the standard, so it's something that we're aspiring to."
Rutkiewicz added: "On Saturday I want to go out and I want to try and lay a glove on them. I don't want them rolling up to our home park and having it easy.
"It's up to the boys to show that and to prove that the start of the season was the big factor here.
"We've just got to make sure that we approach that game with the right frame of mind, with the mentality that we're playing the top of the league.
"It's an opportunity to get a big, big victory for us and consolidate that second place as well."
Jack Stainrod's first-half hat-trick was added to by a Neil McLaughlin strike to give Kilby a comfortable victory over Dalbeattie Star on Wednesday night, but Rutkiewicz admits he had misgivings at 0-0.
He said: "We were already through, we're just in the door - I think we were 12 days in by then - and trying to gauge the team.
"The boys have relaxed a little bit as well, because I think there was a reaction from the players. They were happy with how things were going under [former manager Chris Aitken] and I think it was inevitable that there was going to be some kind of reaction.
"But last night was kind of perfect, because we went down there and were already through.
"We started quite brightly, but between 20 minutes and 30 minutes I thought 'we're going to turn this into a hard game tonight' but then we broke away and scored.
"After that there was only one winner. It was a really good performance, we kept a clean sheet, were ruthless and clinical at both ends and we could have had a couple more, if truth be told.
"But I'm delighted to get away with a 4-0 win and up the road."
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