The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Locke’s men raring to go after enforced gap
Hopes for recharged batteries rather than ring-rust
With his players not having had any meaningful action since November 22, Raith boss Gary Locke is wary of ringrust when they travel to face St Mirren tomorrow.
The Stark’s Park manager is unhappy that his team effectively had a miniwinter break. It was the result of a combination of factors including the postponement of a home league game against Morton because of a rescheduled Scottish Cup tie.
Locke put his players through their paces in a closed-doors match last week, but knows he will only find out if his squad have recharged their batteries or lost their match sharpness when they kick-off against the Buddies.
“It’s been a while and it’s something we’ve been really disappointed about, the fact we’re at this stage of the season and we’ve not played for three weeks,” he said.
“It’s pretty poor, but there’s nothing we could do about it. It’s the nature of what’s happened, and we’re certainly looking forward to this week’s game.”
When asked if he had any fears over his side being rusty, Locke added: “That’s obviously something we’ll find out on Saturday, but what we’ve done is tried to make use of the time without a match and played a closed-doors game, which I felt was important.
“I’m not going to sit here and complain about it, but it’s not been ideal.
“The boys have trained well and, hopefully, we can go into Saturday’s game with everybody raring to go.”
St Mirren finally broke their league duck in midweek against Queen of the South, and Locke is well aware their tails will be up after the morale-boosting win.
He said: “We’ve watched them in the last couple of games and they’re a different team. They’re playing a different shape, a different system and they’ve given some young lads a chance, which is great to see.
“They’ve some terrific young players, allied to some really good experienced players.
“It is a tough place to go, but it will be even tougher now they’re on the back of their first win. They’ve got the monkey off their back during the week and that will probably be a huge lift for them.
“But by not playing we’ve dropped a position in the league, so we would like to try to get back to winning ways.
“We’ve been on a good run, we’re six games unbeaten, and we want to keep that going, but we know it’s going to be difficult.”
Long-term injured Craig Barr, Jason Thomson and Bobby Barr will all miss the St Mirren game, while the club are still awaiting the full results of blood tests done on Scott Robertson to try to determine if his ongoing groin problem is being caused by an infection.
Kyle Benedictus is suspended for the game after his sending-off against Ayr last month – after two yellow cards for dissent and a wild tackle – which his boss described as “crazy”.
Locke said the big defender knew he had let himself and the team down, and he did not need to tell him that.
He added: “Kyle is suspended, which is a blow for us, because it’s an area of the team where we’re not well covered.
“When Mango (Craig Barr) is fit again then we’ll have cover in that area but we’ve been pretty fortunate that Kyle and big Jean M’voto have played the majority of the games.
“With Kyle being missing, we’ll certainly have to reshuffle at the back.
“It was a crazy sending off and he knows that,” he said.
“He’s been a rock for us this season and he held his hands up after the game. He knew it was a silly tackle.
“But the problem is it’s cost him a game and that will hurt him more than anything.
“It was a crazy tackle but he’s been different class for us this season, so we’re not going to dwell on that too long.”
Itwasa crazy tackle but he’s been different class for us this season, so we’re not going to dwell on that too long. GARY LOCKE ON KYLE BENEDICTUS