New Raith Rovers boss Neill Collins gives his thoughts on predecessor Ian Murray's shock dismissal

And Collins, 41, who leads Raith for the first time in an SPFL Trust Trophy tie at Ayr United this Sunday, sees similarity between the unexpected sacking of Murray – who got Raith to the Premiership play-off final last season – and his previous managerial career at Barnsley (2023 to 2024, before he was dismissed).

“Ian and I have a lot in common in some respects,” Collins, who also previously bossed American outfit Tampa Bay Rowdies from 2018 to 2023, told the Fife Free Press.

“At Barnsley I was fifth with one game left and if you’d asked me months earlier we would have taken fifth I’d have bitten your hand off.

“We’d had to go through a lot of changes.

“So I’m sure Ian feels very similar but you take everything on face value. “That’s the job we’re in and are committed to. It definitely tests you.

“You’ll see across football now people losing their jobs now we’re four or five games in.

“I have had good conversations with the people here and it feels right. “That’s not to say there won’t be steps forward and steps back with the team, that’s one thing I learned at Tampa. “We had a lot of success, won games, won trophies but it still had its challenges.

“There are always patches of games where you think ‘when are we going to win next’ in any job.

“But you do the right things and it turns around again.”

Although Collins is happy with the squad at Raith, he said he may well look to add some loan signings over the next few weeks.

He said: “We will definitely explore the loan market and if there’s anything we think will improve us we’ll try to do it.

“When you come into a new club you only really start to learn about your team when you work with them.

“You can watch all the footage and do all the other things, but it’s when you start working with them every day that you see what you’ve got.

“The biggest thing for me is getting the key guys back fit again and if you said to me we’d do that and not get anyone else in, I’d probably take that.

“But hopefully we can do both.”