The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘Brilliant, brilliant season’ for Rovers
Euan Murray insists Raith Rovers have plenty of reasons for optimism in their promotion push, after a “brilliant, brilliant season”.
The defender admits to a sense of frustration the Stark’s Park side could not sustain their title challenge right to the end.
But, despite Dundee United finally shaking off the Kirkcaldy men in the home straight of the Championship race, Murray is convinced they can go into the play-offs with confidence.
Raith finished the season in second on 69 points – six more than Dundee needed to win the league last term and two better off than Kilmarnock two years ago when Murray was at Rugby Park.
It would have been enough to clinch the title in six campaigns going back to 2000 and has only been beaten by the division’s second-placed team four times since the millennium.
Murray said: “There’s plenty to build on going into these play-offs, with how good a campaign it has been.
“It probably doesn’t feel as good as it has been because we didn’t win the league. But you need to look at everything, in terms of where we were at the start of the season.
“We’re all frustrated we’ve not won the league.
“But, for a club like Raith Rovers, to have been seventh last year and then to have thrown a squad together, really, in the summer, and to have racked up that many points and wins is excellent.
“We finished two points ahead of the tally I won the league with at Kilmarnock.
“When you look at it from that point of view, it’s been a really good season.
“I can’t comment too much on last season because I wasn’t here, but to go from seventh to second is impressive.
“Going just on points alone, it’s a brilliant, brilliant season.”
Raith have enjoyed plenty of highs along the way, with Murray picking out December’s 1-0 win over United in front of almost 2,000 away fans.
It was an occasion that led to chief executive Andy Barrowman calling the club’s improvements – on and off the pitch – a “movement”.
Murray added: “We’ve had just incredible days on their own, like United away at Tannadice, which was unbelievable.
“Hopefully we’ve got a few more good days left in us and we can see the job through, and get up to the Premiership.”
Following Friday’s 5-0 win over Arbroath that brought the curtain down on the regular season, Raith appeared primed for the play-offs.
But they are having to kick their heels this week waiting to play the winners of the quarter-final between Airdrie and Partick Thistle.
Murray smiled: “Knowing the staff, they’ll not let us have any sort of an easy week. No doubt, it’ll be doing after doing in training.
“Hopefully we can get a few boys back and have the cleanest bill of health as possible going into these play-off games.
“And we’ll be watching on to see whether we’re going to be coming up against either Airdrie or Partick.”