Raith Rovers manager Grant Murray maintains his side are well capable of stringing together another impressive run of results to force their way back into the play-off mix.
The Kirkcaldy club saw their seven-game unbeaten record brought to an end after a disappointing showing against Rangers at Stark’s Park last week.
But Murray sees no reason why his team cannot bounce back in the right fashion at bottom club Livingston tomorrow and potentially kick-start what would be a timely promotion push.
Rovers are now nine points behind well-placed Queen of the South and Falkirk in the race for fourth, but Murray is not giving up hope with two games against Queens and another encounter with the Bairns still to come between now and the end of the season.
“We’ve got to try and go on another unbeaten run,” he told Courier Sport.
“There are lot of games still to go until the end of the season, league games and a big cup game, so it’s important that we focus individually on each game as it comes along.
“Saturday against Livingston is a big game.
“At the end of the day, the run that we’ve gone on to get to this position, we’ve got to have that belief that we can do it again.
“If we’re going to get fourth spot we need to be winning games of football week in week out, which means another run and it means going out on Saturday and getting back to winning ways.
“If we start dropping any more points then it starts to become very difficult because you are relying on the teams above you to lose games.
“You can’t have any effect on them whatsoever.
“But as long as we do our job, we may have a chance.”
Rovers could be forgiven for having revenge on their minds after being trounced 5-1 at home when the teams last met, although they will be short in the striking department with Christian Nade suspended and Calum Elliot still injured.
Murray continued: “If Christian is not available it just means that someone else has got to come in, it’s as simple as that.
“It’s part and parcel of using the squad.
“Livingston will be right up for the game and they’ve picked up a lot performance-wise in the games they’ve played recently so they’ll be desperate to get a result and get themselves climbing up that table.
“Obviously they’ve done well in the games against us previously so that will give them a bit of confidence going into it.
“In the 5-1 game, the circumstances obviously became difficult after Ross Perry was sent off after a minute-and-a-half, but we’ve got to be wary of them because we know what they can do.
“We’ve got to use it as well though because we want a better performance and a better result than we got that day.”
Murray has also urged his team to guard against looking beyond this weekend to next weekend’s Scottish Cup quarter-final against Inverness, with three points in the league the priority at this moment in time.
“Players are players and they’ll have the cup game in the back of their minds, but they’ll want to go to Livingston and if they are in the team on Saturday they’ll want to put in a performance that keeps them in the team for the following week,” he added.
“The boys were disappointed after Friday.
“I think we found it hard when Rangers went ahead and we’ve probably been unfortunate that we’ve come up against Rangers three times this season and they’ve been right on their game.
“If they had played like they did against us every week they would be sitting top or joint top that’s my opinion anyway.
“I can only judge them on when we’ve played them and they’ve been spot on and they’ve hurt us.
“But our players knew the run they had been on was good, since the start of the year, and they’ll want to get back to that.
“Players will have the cup tie in the back of their mind but come 3pm on Saturday the only thing they’ll be focused on is the league game at Livingston.”
Meanwhile, Raith have reminded fans that their forthcoming home game with league leaders Hearts on Tuesday March 17 is an all-ticket affair.
Season tickets are valid, and tickets can be purchased from the office at Stark’s Park between 10am and 7pm this coming Tuesday.