Neill Collins is convinced the TV cameras can bring out the best in his Raith Rovers side – after recalling how he rose to the occasion with Roy Keane watching on.
The Stark’s Park boss was at Sunderland when Manchester United legend Keane was appointed manager in August 2006 and took in the The Black Cats’ Monday night clash with West Brom from the stand.
Collins headed in his side’s second goal in an impressive 2-0 win that lifted them off the foot of the Championship.
With plenty of other appearances in front of the cameras during a dozen years in English football, the Raith manager knows the motivating effect it can have against Ayr United tonight.
“I think it maybe does make a difference when the game is on the TV,” said Collins after joking his players were all booked in for haircuts.
“It certainly means that there’s probably less concern about the players maybe being focused.
“As a player, having been one myself, when you’re on telly, national telly, you’re just that little bit more ready, you’re pretty zoned in,
“You want to show what you can do and you want to do well. I think it definitely heightens that focus.
“The players know that their family will be watching, their friends will be watching and they’ll want to put their best foot forward, and that’s the great thing about it.
‘Show people’
“I played some big games on TV down south. Like play-offs and when you play for Leeds you’re on telly nearly every week. And there was an FA Cup semi-final.
“Also, I actually scored for Sunderland the day that Roy Keane got announced and was in the stadium, so that was a pretty good moment.
“It’s definitely nice playing on television. It’s a great opportunity for us, against a good side, to go and show what a lot of people that do watch us have seen.”
Collins’ first match in charge of Raith was away to Ayr in an SPFL Trust Trophy tie that saw Rovers 2-0 up inside the first 15 minutes – only to lose 3-2 after the Honest Men’s second-half comeback.
“I think that was a good learning curve from the players’ perspective, and for me,” said Collins, who has raised concerns about this week’s fixtures.
“But particularly for the players, in respect of the first-half, when they did loads of things that we’d asked and it worked.
“And then, of course, the other team was going to adapt. We’d foreseen how that would pan out, but we didn’t implement the next part as well as we could.
“That’s fine because that’s sometimes part of growing.
“Ayr have obviously been very consistent, and I think we’ve changed a little bit since then and improved.
“But we can definitely take things from that game that we need to know and what we’ll need to deal with – and also how we can hurt them.”
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