East Fife could give their hopes of a promotion play-off place a major boost with a win over Berwick Rangers at Bayview this evening.
And player boss Gary Naysmith is fully aware of just how important three points could be in the grand scheme of things in the race for a top four berth.
The Fifers consolidated fourth spot with an impressive 2-0 win over third-placed Arbroath and can move four points clear of Annan in the table if they can win their game in hand against Berwick tonight.
Naysmith therefore is keen for his side to continue building momentum with just seven games including tonight’s still to play.
“I was happy with the result on Saturday but I’m more happy with the response from the 2-0 defeat against East Stirling,” he commented.
“For me, the performance at East Stirling came out of nowhere and we had a meeting on Thursday night which lasted about an hour where we looked at what went wrong.
“I had instances where I wasn’t happy and where we talked things through.
“I don’t really like to do that to the players because I don’t want to put them in a negative frame of mind, but I felt it needed to be done.
“So it was good to be able to say after Saturday that the East Stirling performance can go down as a one-off.
“We had a tired performance against Queen’s Park and we can maybe use the trip up to Elgin as an excuse, and then we had a one-off against East Stirling, but it was great to get the three points against Arbroath.
“Some might say we were fortunate to get the three points with the pressure that Arbroath put us under at times, others might say we deserved the win because of the discipline we showed and the defensive performance we put in.”
The Fifers head into tonight’s game with striker Kevin Smith still a doubt following his knee injury, although he will face a late fitness test.
Liam Smith is away on Scotland Under 19 duty and defender Julen Etxabeguren Leanizbarrutia remains out, while Naysmith added that one or two other players will hopefully shake off knocks to face a Berwick side buoyed by their win over Montrose at the weekend.
“It will be a difficult game for us,” the Bayview boss acknowledged.
“Berwick will be looking at it and if they beat us they’ll be four points behind us with a game in hand.
“But if we can win it we’ll be 10 ahead of them and that would be a big ask for them with the games they’ve got left, so it’s a big, big game for both teams.
“We can only take care of ourselves and we’re expecting a hard game because we’ve had a couple of 3-2s against them already this season.”