As he prepares his team for the biggest match Dunfermline have had in years, Pars boss Jim McIntyre has thanked the club’s board for giving him the time to put together a team who are three games away from clinching promotion to the top flight.
McIntyre knows that the faith the Dunfermline directors have shown in a rookie boss wouldn’t be replicated in many boardrooms across the country, but he believes that trust is now being repaid.
He said, “In past seasons we haven’t been consistent enough. We’ve had to strip a team down and rebuild it.
“I’ve been very fortunate to get the chance to do that because there’s not many managers, especially young ones, who get that opportunity.
“There has been gradual progression every year better league positions and better football. It’s been a work in progress.”
McIntyre is well aware that season-on-season improvement won’t count for anything when Saturday’s top-of-the-table Fife derby with Raith Rovers kicks off.
He pointed out, “The structure is in place here at Dunfermline but you earn the right to get into the SPL on the pitch.”
Raith are the only first division team Dunfermline haven’t beaten this season, but it’s a statistic that McIntyre won’t be dwelling on.
He stated, “They’ve taken seven points out of nine but I don’t think we’re owed anything.
“The bottom line is you make your own breaks. At East End Park, for example, Raith would say they did well to get a draw at the death, but from our point of view we threw it away.
“We were the masters of our own downfall that particular day.
“This would always have been a big game simply because it’s a derby, but the added spice is the fact that the two of us are in the running for the title.
“Both ourselves and Raith have managed to get the results required over the last few weeks to set this one up nicely.
“You can get too hyped up for a match but we’ve got experience in our team so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Only long-term injury victim Steven Bell and suspended Kevin Rutkiewicz are sidelined, and McIntyre reported that all the rest have been doing their best to catch his eye in the run-up to the big match.
He said, “I think we had 13 players training on Monday but there was about 25 today. There’s certainly nobody complaining about knocks just now.
“We’ve kept things normal this week and they’ve trained really well. Tomorrow will be about getting organised and preparing for the big day.
“The players are really up for the game. We’ll be going out to attack them and I think they’ll come at us as well.
“A draw never suits us. We go into every game looking to win it. If you start thinking a draw’s not a bad result for us, it can be dangerous. You can assess it after the game, but not before.”