Raith Rovers will be hoping home advantage can help them bounce back from recent losses when they host Airdrie United on Saturday.
After Dunfermline brought the Kirkcaldy club’s seven-game unbeaten run to an end a fortnight ago, Rovers tasted a second successive defeat on Sunday when they crashed out of the Ramsdens Cup at the hands of Partick Thistle.
However, Raith are back at Stark’s Park to focus on the First Division campaign and player-boss Grant Murray is determined to see his side return to winning ways in front of their own fans.
”The players now have to pick themselves up and get back to being a hard team to beat but also a team that’s well capable of winning games,” he said.
”Our home games are key for us and you want to make it difficult for teams to come here and go away with anything. That’s how we approach all our home games we want to win them.
”You learn more from losing games and we will learn from our two defeats. It’s all about how you react.
”I thought we performed well enough in the first half against Partick but we came out in the second half and let ourselves down.”
Rovers sit in fourth position in the table, having taken seven points from their first four league fixtures, although Airdrie United are just a point behind in fifth.
Reflecting on Sunday’s cup exit at Firhill, Murray insists there was no shame in losing to a Thistle side boasting an unbeaten start to the league campaign and a team which has scored 11 goals in their opening four games.
”It turned out to be a very difficult game for us,” he said. ”First half went well and managed to prevent Partick from creating the number of chances that they probably have been they’ve been scoring a lot of goals.”
Although Murray believes Partick were worthy of their win, he will be looking for his side to show a bit more composure whenever things go against them after capitulating a bit on Sunday.
”We kind of felt sorry for ourselves and crumbled.”
Goalkeeper David McGurn and defender Dougie Hill will return to the side after serving their Ramsdens Cup suspensions, while defender Laurie Ellis is nearing a return to action after his injury problems.