It has been said many times that the Championship is the most competitive league in Scottish football.
And just one quick look at Raith Rovers’ results this season backs up that argument.
Remarkably, the Stark’s Park side have not WON OR LOST a league game by any more than a single goal.
It lays bare the fact that Raith’s title challenge could easily swing either way between now and the end of the season.
AND how their place near the top of the table might have been oh so different up until now.
After three straight Championship defeats in recent weeks, a return to winning ways is obviously imperative if they are to keep challenging Dundee United.
But how narrow the defeats have been will provide confidence a reversal of fortunes may not be too far away.
Only five draws from 22 league games so far seems to show there is enough between competitors to ensure there is a winner more often than not.
Blown away
Yet Ian Murray’s side have been proof in their other outings of just how incredibly tight the second-tier can be.
Saturday’s agonising 3-2 defeat to Inverness Caley Thistle was the 17th time this term that one goal has decided a Raith game.
Whenever they have won or lost this season, it has not been by any more.
Aided by those dramatic late comebacks that lit up their campaign right up until the 2-1 victory over Arbroath at Gayfield last month, Rovers have come out on the right side of the battle on 13 occasions.
But at no point have they blown away an opposing team in the league.
They managed that in the Scottish Cup when they turned in a swashbuckling display to sweep aside Fife rivals Dunfermline 3–0 at East End Park.
In the balance
And they have eased to comfortable wins against Albion Rovers (2-0) in the Viaplay Cup and Cliftonville (3-0), Montrose (3-1) and Hamilton Accies (4-1) in the SPFL Trust Trophy.
However, each of those teams was from a lower league or, in Cliftonville’s case, another country.
When faced with opponents from the Championship, things have been very much nip and tuck, with games in the balance right to the end.
Unfortunately for Raith, the single-goal victories of pre-Christmas – and January 2 against Pars – have swung the other way in recent weeks in three straight league losses.
A defensive frailty and propensity to concede goals from either corners or cross balls is certainly not helping.
Having never themselves been blown away in defeat, it would suggest it might not take too much to spark a turnaround.
Players constantly claim that ‘everyone can beat everyone else’ in the Championship.
And the tight nature of every single second-tier encounter involving Rovers this term is proof that it does not take much for that to happen.
But it also hints at the probability of a rollercoaster finish to the campaign for the Stark’s Park men even if they do rediscover their winning ways.
