Ryan Dow is relishing the prospect of home comforts following his ‘journeys from hell’ in recent weeks.
The Dunfermline winger, who commutes from Dundee, has put in the hard miles during the Pars’ three successive matches on the road — Queen of the South, Ayr United and Kilmarnock.
He also notes that two of those matches were played on an artificial surface, albeit they did claim a precious victory on the plastic at Palmerston Park.
Nevertheless, Dow is enthused by the prospect of a first outing at East End Park since January 22, with Kilmarnock the visitors on Saturday. And he hopes solid home form can be the basis of their survival bid.
Dunfermline have registered four points from their last two games on the Halbeath Road and Dow said: “Tell me about it — it has been absolute journeys from hell with three away games back to back!
“Especially for me, because I live the furthest away.
“It will be good to get back on our home pitch. We like playing on a good pitch — grass rather than on astro.
“We have had a couple of astro surfaces in the last two weeks so it will be good to get back on the grass.
“The last game [at East End Park] was against Inverness and, although we were really poor in the first half, we came out in the second half and played really well. We won against Hamilton before that.
“We want to get our home form going again.”
Losing ground
With Dunfermline’s scheduled Championship clash against Partick Thistle postponed last Friday, subsequent results have done little to ease the Pars’ plight.
Ayr United defeated Inverness, Hamilton won against Morton, then — on Tuesday evening — the Cappielow side won at Firhill.
John Hughes’ side, despite an undoubted upturn in performances, now find themselves six points adrift of the guaranteed safety of eighth spot.
“Let’s be honest, you always keep an eye on them [other teams’ results],” conceded Dow.
“It is like the league has flipped a bit. Before losing Kilmarnock, we had gone four games unbeaten.
“Morton have been on a good run. Ayr have been on a good run and it is like all the teams near the bottom are hitting a wee bit of form.
“When you look at the table, even though we went four games unbeaten, we have not really moved that much.
“Other teams will be thinking the same. You can win a couple on the bounce and maybe only go up one position.
“It is all so tight. But we just need to concentrate on ourselves, hit form and build up a bit of momentum.”
