Raith Rovers boss Grant Murray believes the lure of promotion play-offs has breathed new life into Scottish football’s second tier this season.
The introduction of the new Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) brought with it a new play-off format which will see the teams coming second, third and fourth in the Championship compete with the 11th-placed team from the Premiership, with the winner to play in the top flight the following season.
And that, according to the Rovers manager, has made this season’s Championship one of the most competitive in years.
“I think it (the introduction of play-offs) has given every team in the league a lift,” Murray said.
“There’s going to be that desire with every team that there’s something to play for, not just top spot.
“I’ve been involved in this league for some time and there have been a couple of teams who have run away with it, and when that happens there’s probably a feeling in teams that you are not going to catch them.
“But now there’s something to play for and it gives everyone the same aim.”
The promotion play-off format differs from the other SPFL leagues in that the teams finishing third and fourth in the Championship will play a two-legged tie, where the team finishing third will enjoy home advantage in the second leg.
The winners of that will then have to play the team who finished second in the Championship, again in a two-legged tie and again with the higher-placed team given home advantage in the second leg.
The eventual victors of that game will then face the side who finished 11th in the Premiership on a home and away knockout basis in the play-off final, with the Premiership team handed home advantage in the decisive second leg.
Critics have therefore suggested that it is heavily weighted in favour of the struggling Premiership side, but teams like Rovers will still no doubt be delighted to see their chance of promotion enhanced after several seasons where just one team went up.
Rovers moved into third spot in the Championship table courtesy of their hard-fought 1-0 win over Queen of the South at the weekend, and Murray was happy to pick up full points from a notoriously hard visit to Dumfries.
“Queen of the South have started the season really well, they are going OK in the league and they are still in both cups, so we understood it was going to be a hard game,” he said.
“They came into the league with a fantastic winning mentality and they lost very little games last season.
“They took four goals off Dundee at the start of the season, they’ve beaten St Mirren and that’s great from their point of view, so that’s how difficult a game we knew it was going to be.
“But that’s why we’re delighted to come away with the three points. I felt the whole team’s work rate was fantastic. We’ve played better in games and it’s a difficult place to go but I’ll take 1-0 any day of the week.”