They may have been part of a team that shipped five goals at Ibrox last week but Raith boss Ray McKinnon believes his first-choice centre-half pairing have the potential to be the best in the Championship.
Kyle Bendictus and Lewis Toshney joined the club in the summer with the manager admitting they were exactly the sort of young and hungry players he was looking for.
They have linked well despite that blip against Rangers and McKinnon is expecting even more from the duo as the season progresses.
He said: “I think they (Benedictus and Toshney) have been great.
“If you take the Rangers game out of the equation, they have been brilliant.
“They were excellent at Ibrox, they had the right attitude and circumstances went against them.
“I honestly think they could become the best in the league.”
It may be early days but Rangers are already looking to be the best in the Championship this season.
And McKinnon believes Mark Warburton’s side are capable of negotiating the entire campaign without tasting defeat.
He said: “If they play the way they did on Saturday, Rangers could go through the season unbeaten.
“If you are really organised and get a lot of luck and they have an off-day then they may get beaten.
“But if they play the way they did against us and Queen of the South the week before, then you wouldn’t bet against them going through the season unbeaten.
“I think everybody is playing for second, third and fourth place and everyone would like to think they are in with a shot of that, we are no different.
“I won’t set any targets, because there are a lot of good teams Falkirk, Hibs, St Mirren, Queen of the South, who are all strong.
“This is a very competitive league this year. But hopefully we can get back to winning ways on Saturday and that would represent a good start to the season.”
Prior to the Rangers game, a war of words broke out between the two clubs over the recall of Rangers player Ryan Hardie from Scotland Under-19 duty.
McKinnon admitted though that he had no quarrel with Rangers or Warburton.
He said: “There was no problem with Mark. It would have made no difference whether they had Ryan Hardie or not, with the quality throughout their team, they were that good.
“Mark was brand new after the match and we chatted away after the game, so that was great. As far as I’m concerned, that is done and dusted and we are looking ahead to this weekend.”
The manager revealed that long-term injury absentee Craig Barr finally has some light at the end of the tunnel.
He added: “Craig has had a jag and could be back in training in three weeks. It really would be like a new signing and it would give us options to move Toshney into midfield and things like that.”