Raith Rovers defender Rory McKeown says his side are keen to give the Stark’s Park faithful something to shout about in this afternoon’s Fife derby.
The Kirkcaldy club started the season well, winning their first two competitive matches in front of their own fans, but they are now without a victory down Pratt Street way in their last six home games.
There might be no better game in which to end that disappointing run than when bragging rights are at stake, although McKeown, who was on loan with Cowdenbeath as they scrapped for First Division survival last season, knows full well that their Fife rivals currently propping up the Championship table this term – will be well up for today’s clash.
He explained: “There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it but we haven’t been good enough at home. There’s no two ways about it.
“But we go into this weekend hoping to try and change that, and we’re focused on trying to pick up three points.
“We’re not really worrying about our home form as such, we’re just worrying about Cowdenbeath on Saturday.
“A derby is always a good game to come into and you are always looking forward to the next game.
“But I know Jimmy Nicholl and Cowdenbeath will be looking to try and pick up points because they are sitting bottom just now, so they are not going to come to our place and hold back.
“Hopefully we can do the same and it’s a good entertaining game for everyone.
“I’ve got plenty of fond memories from my time with Cowdenbeath, although getting dragged into a relegation battle wasn’t nice.
“But obviously it was good that they stayed up last year with Jimmy Nicholl and I’m friends with a few of the boys at Cowdenbeath.
“Obviously the two strikers they had last year Kane Hemmings and Greg Stewart have been a big loss to them and maybe they are not scoring as many goals as they would have liked, but I still speak to Jimmy Nicholl often.”
Rovers go into today’s game on the back of last weekend’s defeat at Hearts, but McKeown maintains his side merited more from their trip to Tynecastle.
“Obviously we gave away a goal quite early, which wasn’t part of our gameplan,” he admitted.
“We set out to be hard to beat and we were hoping to try and counter Hearts, so maybe a goal at the start did kill us off a little bit.
“But I thought we controlled a large part of the game, we felt solid in the back four, and I think the fact they only had three shots the entire game speaks for itself.
“I also thought we silenced the crowd a bit because they were getting on our backs for the first wee while.
“It was a strange game but I thought we deserved more from it to be honest with you.
“We’ve got to take the positives from the Hearts performance but we’ve got to go and try and score a goal, it’s as a simple as that.”
Rovers boss Grant Murray took heart from his side’s first clash with Cowden this season when they ran out comfortable 3-1 winners in the end at Central Park.
“Up until you get the second goal, you know what derbies are like and they can change so quickly, but when we got the third we were in a great position,” he commented.
“But we had to work hard that day to get into that position.
“We had to play good football and we had to bury our chances.
“That’s the kind of stuff you need to go for you, and you need everything like that to go for you in derbies.
“You need that in all games but in the derbies we’ve had they become so close and there’s always been a lot of goals, penalties etc.
“You name it, there’s been everything.”
Striker Christian Nade could be available for a return to the starting line-up after training all week in the wake of his ankle injury.