The exhausted squad travels to Ayr on the back of two midweek Scottish Cup matches against Airdrie, which culminated in Rovers progressing to meet Aberdeen with a replay victory on Wednesday.

Boss John McGlynn hopes the muscle-sapping cup excursions do not have an impact on Saturday's performance – and result – at Somerset Park.
"Whether or not we can cope is not the issue, because we simply have to cope with it," McGlynn told SportsPress.

"I don't know what kind of team I'll be able to put out. We'll just have to pick up the pieces from the cup replay and get on with it.
"Fatigue means we won't be as sharp as we'd like to be, so we'll have to keep the squad fresh as best we can.

"However, the numbers we've got means there's not a lot of room for manoeuvre."

French forward Gregory Tade is suspended for the Ayr showdown after his recent booking against Partick Thistle saw him breach the disciplinary threshold, but Rovers only injury concern is with club captain Iain Davidson, who has not featured since October.

"His knee is fine now, but he's picked up another injury," McGlynn explained.

"He kicked the bottom of Grant Murray's foot in training and we thought it would a short term thing, but that's been three weeks now and it's showed no signs of improving.

"There's nothing broken, but it's a very tender part of the foot. Iain says he's in a lot of pain so he'll be a long shot for Saturday."

Rovers are already looking forward to next weekend's money-spinning tie against Aberdeen, which despite the short notice, is to be an all-ticket affair.

Tickets details are due to be announced via the club's official website, www.raithroversfc.com, imminently with Ticketmaster expected to provide an online service for Rovers fans.

Despite the obvious excitement ahead of the club's biggest Scottish Cup tie in over a decade, McGlynn insisted the league remains the team's focus.

"The league is our bread and butter," he said.

"Ayr are second bottom and our aim has to be to keep that gap between ourselves and them, if not make it bigger.

"We've not scored against Ayr yet this season so we'll have to get the right formula that allows us to do that."

Rovers record against the league's bottom three teams this season is not impressive – one win, three defeats and two draws.

"We're on 26 points and it doesn't matter how we've got these points, whether it be against teams at the top or the bottom," McGlynn stressed.
"There's maybe a theory in there somewhere but by the end of the season we'll have played everyone four times, and we'll have done our best to take points against every team.

"We're in a strong position but we need to build on it in the second half of the season.

"If we can get back into mid-table it would be a great boost to everyone, but we must be prepared for some hard times to come."

ONE player has left Raith Rovers while another is in talks aimed at securing an extended contract. To find out the latest, pick up a copy of this week's Fife Free Press.