Hearts end the first quarter of their Scottish Premiership season nine points clear at the top of the table after a clinical, four-goal demolition of Dundee.

The Tynecastle side took full advantage of Celtic being in Premier Sports Cup semi-final action on Sunday to extend their lead over the reigning champions.

The second-bottom visitors were a match for their hosts - but only until Lawrence Shankland struck after half an hour to move top of the Premiership scoring stakes with seven goals.

Head coach Derek McInnes had rested three key players after the midweek draw with St Mirren, and Pierre Landry Kabore justified the decision to hand him a start with a goal either side of the break and Tomas Bent Magnusson added a fourth.

Hearts move on to 29 points and are one win away from equalling the total they achieved after 12 games at the start of the 2005-06 campaign - that was derailed by the surprise sacking of manager George Burley.

Dundee, meanwhile, are now without a win in six away games and are now only two points clear of bottom side Livingston.

Having gone six games with an unchanged side, McInnes took the gamble of resting in-form trio Claudio Braga, Craig Halkett and Stephen Kingsley and it was Dundee who came closest to an opener.

However, no sooner had winger Cameron Cosgrave's 18-yarder deflected off the junction of bar and post than Hearts were racing up the other end to score.

Left-back Harry Milne found Shankland unmarked outside the box and the Scotland striker fired his low drive off the inside of the far post.

Hearts quickly built on that as Oisin McEntee headed down from a corner and Landry Kabore swiveled inside the six-yard box to fire the second.

It was all Hearts for the opening 10 minutes of the second half and Landry Kabore side-footed home into the empty net on the rebound after goalkeeper Jon McCracken turned a fine Blair Spittal strike off the face of the crossbar.

Dundee captain Simon Murray had the ball in the net only to be rightly penalised for offside and substitute midfielder Magnusson added to the pain by bundling home from a corner after his own shot was turned over by McCracken.

A few eyebrows were raised when McInnes dropped three of his most in-form players to the bench.

However, despite a sticky start, the subsequent victory - which means Hearts remain the only unbeaten team left in Premiership and unbeaten in 15 going back to last season - was further evidence of their strength in depth.

Interviewed before kick-off by BBC 5 Live, chief executive Andrew McKinlay said: "We will win the league, but whether it's this season or not, I don't know."

There were a few question marks after Hearts were fortunate to escape with a draw at St Mirren on Wednesday, but there will be growing belief that it could be this season given they won this at a canter.

That was despite resting emerging folk hero Braga and two other key players carrying knocks.

Landry Kabore, who arrived from Estonian club Narva Trans, proved an able deputy as the striker built on last month's hat-trick for Burkina Faso as McInnes achieved his target of remaining top of the table at the end of the first quarter.

Meanwhile, Shankland has firmly re-established himself as a force up front, his 10th goal in all competitions already surpassing last season's disappointing total.

Dundee were the last team to win at Tynecastle 10 games ago, but they never looked like repeating April's 1-0 victory that would have taken them up to eighth.

With Livingston's late goal earning a draw with Hibernian, Pressley's side are instead left looking nervously behind them.

Hearts head coach Derek McInnes: "We're delighted with it. We said the point at St Mirren would be a brilliant and important point if we won today and that's the way it has been.

"A few weeks ago, we set a challenge to players, 'can we be above Celtic before we play them?'. And then 'can we be top of the league after the first round of fixtures?'.

"We've boxed off that little section now and we need to go again for the start of the next round. It's a good reference point for me in the sense of what can be done."

Dundee head coach Steven Pressley: "We came here and had a genuine quiet belief around maybe getting a result here. We've demonstrated that, against some of the best teams, when we get it right, we can be competitive.

"One of the real disappointments for me is that we came into this game as the only side not to lose a goal from a corner kick, and we lost two today We really pride ourselves on that organisation."

Hearts entertain Kilmarnock on Wednesday (19:45 GMT), while Dundee have to wait until next Sunday to host Rangers (15:00).