What Dunfermline boss Jim Jefferies would not give to be involved in the Championship next season.
The veteran manager has steered his team to within touching distance of the promotion play-offs this season and it looks all but certain that a two-legged encounter with Stranraer in the play-off semi-finals is on the cards in May.
If they can get past the Stair Park side, they will be just 180 minutes away from promotion back to Scottish football’s second tier and, with some big name clubs likely to be involved, Jefferies admits he does not want to miss out on the 2014/15Championship.
“Obviously it’s going to be a tough league and it won’t be a case of going in there and thinking we could go straight up,” he said.
“Maybe Dunfermline in the past would be looking to be favourites to go up but next year, with the team that we have and what we can do to get support to try and improve it, the bottom line is that it would be a year getting in there and trying to consolidate, maybe in the top half, and go on from there.
“We had a midweek game the same night as St Johnstone were playing recently and we had a bigger attendance than they did, and we had a bigger one another Saturday when St Johnstone played Ross County and we played Ayr United I think.
“So the club has got a great fan base and, if we’re in the Championship next season, it can only get better because we’ll be up against the likes of Rangers and Hearts.
“Hopefully Raith Rovers and Cowdenbeath can stay up as well because the Fife derbies are always interesting games.”
Jefferies is preparing for a trip to Ibrox this weekend on the back of a goalless draw with Stenhousemuir on Saturday and the Pars boss admits he was perplexed at the visitors to East End Park’s defensive set up.
“I found it strange because Brown Ferguson had been in charge and they scored four goals against Forfar the previous game,” he explained.
“They’ve gone to Ibrox and scored three goals. And it’s not like they are bottom of the league and fighting relegation, they are going for fourth place and they’ve got a gap to try and make up.
“The three games we had played against them, I think they were all fairly open games, but suddenly we’re faced with a scenario where their lone striker was 20 yards in his own box picking up our midfield players.
“It makes it difficult and I’ve got to say the boys deserve credit because it can be very frustrating.
“If that’s the way they set out, to try and get a point, they achieved their goal but it doesn’t make for good watching.
“They kept letting us have the ball, and it was like a training game, but you’ve got to do that wee bit extra and we were guilty of missing chances.
“The one that was unbelievable was the Danny Grainger one, because it was a great move. You couldn’t get a more perfect ball with pace into the six-yard box, we’ve got three people running in there and they all miss it.
“So it’s Specsavers this week to get their eyes tested!”