Captain Kyle ready to lead Raith Rovers into the new season

With pre-season over, the Kirkcaldy side will kick off 2020/21 with a Betfred Cup home derby match against East Fife on Saturday, followed by a trip to Edinburgh to play Hearts on Tuesday night.

Benedictus says it’s a competition in which the Stark’s Park side want to give a good account of themsel ves.

"It's been a long five or six months and it's an exciting game to come back to,” he says.

“Obviously, East Fife will be coming to prove a point. They've always been competitive games between the two sides.

"It's a derby, a big one for the clubs and the fans, so it's one to look forward to. It's just a shame that the fans won't be able to be there, but I'm sure they'll still be watching for the bragging rights.

“We want to do as well as we can in the cup for the club and make it a good start for us.”

Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Cowdenbeath are the other two sides who make up g roup A, with Tuesday’s opponents the favoutites to top the group.

“Obviously, we'll be playing in the same league as Hearts this year, the same with Inverness, so it will be good to test ourselves against those teams,” says the Dundee-born 28-year-old .

“They're probably going to be at the higher end of the Championship table so it'll be a good test on Tuesday against Hearts to see where we are.

“I'm looking forward to it.”

With an eye on the Championship campaign to foll ow the Betfred ties, the defender says it is matter of getting Raith established in their new division.

“It's all about stability for the club,” he says.

“For a couple of years, we've been in League One now, and thankfully we're out of that now and we've got a good group of players who could do well this year.

“I'm not going to say anything about where we're going to finish, but we want to be as high as possible.

"It's going to be difficult, but there's no reason why we can't be up there.”