Scottish Championship: Dunfermline Athletic v Raith Rovers
Venue: East End Park, Dunfermline Date: 13 September Kick-off: 19:45 BST
Coverage: Watch on the BBC Scotland channel and follow live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app
Few would have predicted the first Fife derby of the season would also be a basement battle.
That’s the first mistake, though. Never predict the Championship.
This league throws up more twists and turns than the Big Dipper.
Perhaps the biggest of them all is the dip in Raith Rovers’ form and fortunes.
Nearly six weeks on from the shell-shocking sacking of Ian Murray, heads are still being scratched.
In case anyone forgot, he led Rovers to the Premiership play-off final and only lost the first game of the season to his bogey side, Airdrieonians.
His successor – eventually appointed one month after his dismissal – Neill Collins, finds the side in ninth place with just one win and three defeats from their opening four games.
Former Scotland Under-21 international Collins took charge of the Stark’s Park club for the first time last week and watched his side get knocked out of the SPFL Trust Trophy by Championship leaders Ayr United, despite taking a 2-0 lead.
His baptism of fire only heats up for his league opener, a fiery Fife derby against Dunfermline on Friday, live on BBC Scotland.
The Pars don’t have their own troubles to seek either amid ownership uncertainty, injuries, and poor form.
It all means the stakes for the first derby of the season feel significant.
‘Manager mess takes toll on players’
After 15 minutes of football at Somerset Park last Saturday, it appeared Collins was the appointment of the season.
Two goals to the good against high-flying Ayr United, a dream debut in the Rovers dugout was on the cards.
Then, a collapse. Or rather a colossal comeback from Scott Brown’s side who triumphed 3-2.
It was a body-blow to not only Collins, but a group of players who will have been left bruised by recent events, according to former striker Ryan Stevenson.
It’s no secret that Collins was not Rovers’ first choice. A host of names had their moment in the spotlight as Murray’s potential successor.
For one reason or another, no one jumped at the chance to lead a side who last season were praised from pillar to post for their never-say-die attitude and attractive football.
“I always thought it was going to be a bit difficult for them on the back of last season, that was even if Ian stayed,” Stevenson said on the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast.
“The situation with the manager has compounded that.
“As a player, you’re sitting in a dressing room and you don’t really have any leader and you’re hearing ‘this manager has turned it down, so has this one’, it can affect you as a group.”
So will losing another two-goal lead. For Rovers being two goals to the good seems to be the most dangerous scoreline.
Since the beginning of the 2019-20 season, they have shipped 63 goals from being two or more ahead. A sobering stat.
More positively for them, they’re on a run of five successive wins against their rivals and completed the clean sweep in the Championship last term.
‘Such a difficult job’ for McPake
Down the road in Dunfermline, things are no rosier.
The East End Park club have been up for sale for nearly a month after their German investors cited frustration and unrest among the support as an issue.
Supporters claim the club has lost focus on the first team squad and have under-invested on it.
They’ve not had a lot to sing or shout about on the pitch with the Pars still searching for their first win of the season.
Their winless start to the season also includes a defeat to bitter rivals Falkirk, when unsurprisingly, Dunfermline were depleted.
At one point last season, McPake said he was facing the “worst injury crisis” he’d ever seen.
It’s not eased up much this season either with captain Kyle Benedictus a doubt for the derby.
“It must be such a difficult job for him and people must not lose sight of that,” Stevenson said of McPake.
“It’d be so difficult just looking after a group of players the now.
“You have to be so reactive to injuries, suspensions and he now has all this stuff behind him going on, not knowing where the back end of it is.
“I can only imagine his Monday to Friday, he must get to a Saturday and just think ‘at least I can just concentrate on the football’.”
