East Fife aim to blunt Cove Rangers threat and pose a menace themselves

Cove Rangers’ Rory McAllister and Mitch Megginson have 13 league goals and four assists between them already this season.

East Fife have seen their threat first hand already this campaign, Megginson netting a hat-trick and McAllister once during Cove’s 5-2 win in August.

But boss Young is confident he has the players at his disposal to do a number on Paul Hartley's men at Bayview on Saturday and will set his team up to both blunt Cove’s threat and provide a menace of their own.

“They’re up at the top of the league for a reason, but we’ll go into the game confident and with a game-plan,” said the Fife boss.

"We’ll look to try to force them to play quickly and take the game to them.

"If we get opportunities, we’ll need to take them.

"They have McAllister and Megginson up front, who seem to be scoring every other week, so it’s important we stop the supply to them, force them wide and don't allow them to create opportunities.

"These are things we have to start learning because we have a fresh start now in the second quarter and have to look to get some points on the board to get us back up the table.”

East Fife go into the game on the back of a 3-1 defeat to Raith Rovers at the weekend.

The visitors played well in stages of the game but Young believes too many missed opportunities to find the net are damaging his side.

"The last three games we’ve done pretty well, two of them against full-time opposition,” he added.

"We’ve held our own at times but maybe not had the quality in the final third.

“We’re creating good opportunities and getting into good situations.

"On Saturday there was a three-on-one with Liam Watt on the breakaway and another where Danny Denholm has played it wide to Andrew Osei-Bonsu, who plays it back rather than putting it into the box.

“These are things we’ll touch on in training because it’s a couple of games now where it’s have happened.

"We’re not asking them to do that. We want them to be positive and put the ball into the box.”