Raith Rovers’ director of football Maurice Malpas reckons the players at Stark’s Park should relish Saturday’s Scottish Cup quarter-final against Inverness.
And even though John Hughes’ men are overwhelming favourites heading into the tie in the Highlands, the ex-Caley assistant boss insists Rovers have every chance of causing an upset over his former club.
Alongside Terry Butcher, Malpas helped Caley reach their current heights in Scottish football and is well placed to offer Raith boss Grant Murray some tips having coached many of the players who still ply their trade for Thistle.
However, Malpas acknowledges that Rovers will need more than his inside knowledge to reach the semi-finals on Saturday.
“I can’t hide and say I don’t know certain players,” he told Courier Sport.
“But it’s nothing to do with me telling our players that so and so is good at this, so and so is good at that.
“It’s all about our players going out on the pitch and being better than their opposite number, or the team being better than Inverness.
“I’m looking forward to it.
“It’s one that I think Inverness are expecting to win and probably expecting to win quite handsomely, but football has got a strange habit of slapping you in the face when you think you are getting above your station.
“We’ve nothing to fear at all.
“We can go up there and go and play.
“We’re going to have to battle like mad and we’ll have to fight, but we’ll have to play a bit as well and score a goal or two.
“I think Inverness have had some sore defeats up there, but they’ve had a couple of good wins up there as well.
“As I say, if they think it’s going to be easy then we’ll be there to try and punish them.
“It’s a great chance to get into a semi-final and financially it’s a big game for the club as well because they would gain a lot of money by getting into the semi-final.
“But it’s a massively difficult game as well.
“You are playing against a Premiership side who are third in the league, they have had a brilliant season and they’ve cruised the season so far.
“So it’s a massive game in a lot of ways, but it’s a game everybody is looking forward to.”
Malpas famously turned down the chance to manage Caley in favour of following Butcher down to Hibs, and history tells us it turned out to be an ill-fated decision.
Still, the former Dundee United defender has no regrets.
“I made a decision and it never worked out,” he continued.
“It would be easy to say I should have just stayed, but you didn’t know what would happen.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Inverness and had five great years there.
“I had a ball up there.
“I was treated well by the club, treated well by the public, I loved staying up there and the golf courses were great.
“I left for certain reasons.
“I had a chance to stay as manager but I’ve still kept in touch with the directors, my wife has kept in touch with the directors’ wives, and I still keep in touch with some of the players.
“It was a special time for us.
“We left before we got to the final and we had them second in the league which had never been done before.
“So it was things like that that made it special.
“But it was great that we got time to build a team.
“We got time to build two, three teams really, and it was just a great atmosphere to work in.
“There was good banter, they were a good bunch of boys and you enjoyed going into training.
“The facilities weren’t the best by far, and that was one of the reasons I thought it would be better moving.
“That’s one thing I’ve learned, football is not about training facilities or stadiums.
“It’s all about football players, their attitudes and their commitment to training.
“There were days up in Inverness where the bag of balls blew away, not just one ball, and the boys never batted an eyelid.
“They knew they had to train and they got on with it.
“And they took that attitude in on a Saturday.
“There were some days playing in Inverness where the games shouldn’t have been played, with the wind and things like that.
“But they never let it bother them and we started to use that as a driving force for us.
“A lot of teams coming up the road started to beat themselves before they got there.
“It’s a long road up to Inverness, there was snow on the way up, the pitch wasn’t good, sometimes it was blowing a gale, sometimes it was raining and blowing a gale, and you can see one or two teams coming and they were deflated.
“Our lads had a great attitude and they just enjoyed it.
“It was just a case of them rolling their sleeves up and saying to ourselves let’s try and get a victory.
“The sad thing was that the crowd never really grew with the success the club got, but I think that’s just Scottish football for you.
“There are tons of clubs who have had a bit of success or who have done better than they have in the past and it hasn’t particularly put a lot of bums on seats.”
Malpas linked up with Butcher at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium in 2008 and admits he has been amazed at how far the club has managed to come since those days.
He explained: “It was a shambles when we first went up there.
“We went up and they were miles off survival.
“We ended up being relegated by a goal I think, Falkirk beat us by a goal, and then the next season we decimated the team.
“We had a horrendous time up to about October and couldn’t beat a dusty carpet.
“We were poor, we couldn’t get a blend, and we had brought that many new players in.
“And then suddenly it clicked.
“Adam Rooney started scoring for fun and a lot of the guys from England started realising what Scottish football was all about.
“A few had come up from England and it took them a while to settle, but then we went 20-odd games unbeaten and we were flying.
“Every time we went up the park we seemed to score and we won the league.
“I think Dundee were umpteen points in front of us in October time and we ended up miles in front of them at the end of the season.
“So we got promoted, changed the team again and started to build.
“The players we did bring in loved the area, loved the club, and it was just a case of trying to build a team bringing three or four or five in every season.
“When we left they were second in the league and Yogi Hughes has been fortunate in that he’s not had to change the team because all the players are still there.
“He plays his style, but I think all the lads enjoy staying in Inverness and they can’t believe how laid back the city is.
“The ones who are English and bringing kids up can’t believe how good the educational system is up here, and everything is so well done.
“And being fair to the club, the club tries to do everything they can for them.
“They are not a big club, but they do everything they can for them and people love it.”
Despite sitting third in the Scottish Premiership, Malpas reckons the next yardstick in measuring Caley’s progression has to be some silverware although he hopes Raith can scupper any dream they have of winning this season’s Scottish Cup.
“They got to a cup final last year and maybe getting into Europe is their target they look as if they’ll get there this year,” he concluded.
“But I think they would prefer to win some silverware.
“They got a wee taste of it last year playing in the League Cup final, and they’ll be thinking because of the draw they’ve got this is a great chance of getting to Hampden and winning the Scottish Cup.”