Raith Rovers' Aidan Connolly: Lack of starts has made it tough season for me

The 30-year-old winger told the Fife Free Press: “It's been a tough season. That's all I can say.

"It's been tough and you've got to just keep going. Like I say, we're almost at the play-offs now and we're all together.

"The manager (Barry Robson) says that the subs have been making impacts in a lot of the games the last few weeks, so it's a squad game and that's the most important thing.

“It's hard work (under Robson) and the training's tough. Like you say, we've picked up and we've got to just keep kicking on.

“To be fair, I felt fit before the manager came in as well.

"I've not had a run of games, so it's hard. I think when you have a run of games, that's when you get your real fitness.

"A lot of the boys that have been playing, I probably think they feel a bit fitter.”

With Raith two points behind fourth-placed Partick Thistle in the William Hill Championship in the race to clinch the final Scottish Premiership play-off place – things come to a head this Friday when Raith travel to Queen’s Park while Thistle visit Livingston – the Kirkcaldy team could still be playing top flight football next campaign but the odds are against them.

Connolly said: “You'd need to bring your stats up, but I don't think there's many teams that have gone up that have finished fourth.

"It's tough to play six games and the premier league teams will maybe only play two games. Possibly that could be looked at.

"I would love the league to get expanded in the SPL and bring more teams from the championship into the SPL.

"But the argument about meaningless games and teams wanting games against the Old Firm at least twice this season will likely prevent that ever happening.

"I don't think there's too much money in the Scottish League. So they do everything to try and keep the money with Celtic and Rangers and the clubs in that league already want to have that money, they don't want to lose that.

"So it's probably not going to happen.”