The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Battle for jerseys has Rovers firing
Promotion hopefuls face crucial week
John McGlynn believes fierce competition for places will ensure Raith Rovers do not look too far ahead in their bid to land the League 1 title.
The Stark’s Park side currently enjoy a slender one-point advantage over Falkirk at the top of the table, with Airdrieonians just three points further back and East Fife another three adrift.
McGlynn admits his side did not play well for the majority of last weekend’s meeting with Clyde but still emerged with a crucial 1-0 victory and he knows every three points could be huge in their promotion quest.
The Kirkcaldy outfit face another tough task this afternoon when they travel to face Dumbarton ahead of Tuesday’s potentially pivotal clash with Falkirk.
But the Rovers boss is adamant he has no fears over his players allowing their minds to drift to the Bairns before they have taken care of the Sons.
He said: “We take it one game at a time and we’ve had that philosophy right from the very start. It’s been a case of ‘let’s put everything we’ve got into this next game and what will happen will happen’. Thats where we are still.
“We’ve got good competition for places and that’s very much evident in the guys who came off the bench last Saturday to make an impact.
“That’s important, that these guys are fighting to get into the team and that guys are having to play well to stay in the team.
“These are things that will, ultimately, hopefully win you games, that competition for places. That will keep us on our toes. That will keep us very much focused on the next game and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
“It’s the same three points for Dumbarton or Falkirk. They’re all important games.
“We could win the next two games and lose our last nine and it wouldn’t matter that we had won these ones.
“You’ve just got to go one game at a time. That’s how we have been doing it and that’s how we’re going to do it.
“From our point of view, it’s all good and we just need to stay focused.”
Dumbarton are the only team to beat Raith in the league in the last three months, their 2-0 victory in Fife coming at a time when Rovers were decimated by injury.
But, with his team having strung together an eight-game unbeaten run since that loss just before Christmas, McGlynn is expecting Jim Duffy’s outfit to be the latest to up their standards in search of the league leaders’ scalps.
McGlynn added: “We have been getting results, we’re in a good situation. We’ve taken 17 points from a possible 21 in this quarter with two games left. That’s a fair accumulation of points in such a tight league. We’re just looking to try to continue that.
“But when teams play against us I can never understand why they’ve got so few points because they always play well against us. They all raise their game, which comes from us being at the top of the table and they’re trying to knock you down.”