Ian Murray expects another close game when his side take on Queen’s Park this weekend in the Scottish Championship.
Raith Rovers cracked the post in the opening minutes of the 1-0 defeat at Ochilview earlier in the season.
Owen Coyle’s newly promoted team have acquitted themselves well so far, sitting one place above the Rovers in fourth.
Murray is looking to bounce back after a disappointing performance in the defeat to Dundee.
They will also want to maintain their very good home record.
Raith Rovers have lost just two of their matches at Stark’s Park, winning the other five.
“I think Queen’s Park have adapted to the league exceptionally well,” said Murray.
“They play very good football, they look patient.
“So it’s two teams that like to play, obviously conditions are slightly different with the wind and rain – hopefully it dies down.
“Hopefully it’ll be a good open game, a hard game for both teams – fourth v fifth tells its own story.”
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Murray will be without Ross Matthews again after he had a flare-up ahead of last week’s match.
His attacking options have been bolstered, however, with the return of two players who just missed out last Saturday.
“Ross Matthews missed out last weekend, it flared up on the Friday – so he’s going to miss out again which is really unfortunate,” continued Murray.
“But we got Ryan Nolan back last week and we welcome back this week Jamie Gullan and Ethan Ross.
“We’re better than we have been in some situations.
“We know if we win the game we go into the playoff positions.
“We know if we lose again we lose ground on that.
“We just have to concentrate on ourselves, the boys have trained really, really well this week – recovered after a tough game at Dens.
“We look forward to it but it is going to be hard. It’s not just lip service, it’s an incredibly hard league.
“We’ve had to work really, really hard to get to where we are – but we’re not at full capacity yet.”
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