Murray warns Raith not to be Auchinleck’s latest cup scalp

IAN MURRAY has warned Raith Rovers they are in for a ‘rude awakening’ if they treat Auchinleck Talbot lightly in their Scottish Cup clash. Murray has acknowledged the West of Scotland outfit’s ‘fantastic history’ in the tournament ahead of today’s thirdround meeting at Stark’s Park. Talbot have taken the scalps of a number of SPFL teams, and scared a few others, since competing in the competition for the first time in season 2009-10. Only last term, they defeated Hamilton Accies 1-0 at the same stage and, having also taken Stranraer and Arbroath to replays, they knocked out Ayr United in 2019 on their way to a last-16 loss to Hearts. Rovers suffered a shock 5-2 defeat to Queen’s Park in the league last weekend and Murray has called for a ‘Championship approach’ from his players as they bid to avoid a shock. He said: ‘It’s going to be a really, really hard game. They (Auchinleck) have got a fantastic history in the Scottish Cup and also upsets within that. ‘We’ll give them the full respect they’ve earned and they deserve, and I’m sure they’ll replicate that back to us. ‘If we treat them lightly and think we can swan about because we’re in the Championship, then we’re going to get a rude awakening. ‘In football, unfortunately, you don’t have a lot of time or a lot of opportunities to recover from these things. ‘So, we approach it as we would any other game in the Championship and our full focus is on how well we can play. ‘We know they have dangers and they’ll come to us and be very, very organised. ‘We’ll be heavy favourites in the game, I think that’s fair in saying, but that means nothing.’