Raith Rovers: Gaffer Ian Murray excited at benefits of drawing Glasgow giants Rangers away from home in Scottish Cup

Landing the tie on the weekend of Saturday, March 11 will be music to the ears of board members of cash-strapped Rovers, who have lost an average of £150,000 a season since 2005.

Murray, who has previously managed against Rangers at Ibrox when with former clubs Dumbarton and St Mirren, revealed another potential benefit for his current team which is unbeaten in 12 league and cup matches including last Saturday’s 3-1 home Scottish Cup fifth round success over Premiership outfit Motherwell. ’Well boss Steven Hammell was sacked after the match.

Murray told the Fife Free Press: "March is obviously a big month for us in terms of cups, we have the SPFL Trust Trophy final two weeks later (against Hamilton Accies at the Falkirk Stadium on Sunday, March 26) as well so competition for places will be hotting up.

"People who are in those positions at the moment, the challenge is to keep them.

"For the boys that aren’t it’s a challenge to get in the team. And everybody will want to play at Ibrox, that’s for sure.

"After that I’m quite glad the cup final is after the Scottish Cup. Regardless of the score against Rangers it keeps our season going, pushing for the play-offs as well.

“Ibrox is a very hard place to go regardless of what league they’re in, it’s an intimidating atmosphere.

"For football reasons we had wanted to draw the winner of Falkirk v Darvel.

"That’s no disrespect to either of those clubs, it would just have given us the best opportunity to progress.

"But I think Rangers away was what we wanted for the finances, the occasion and the chance to test ourselves against a top team in Scotland. For the boys to sample a bit of that atmosphere and see how they handle it.

"We have got a lot of football between now and then for both teams, things can change really quickly.

"I think there is an opportunity for us but that’s all it is. Rangers are obviously a really good side this season, Champions League, looking to try and retain the Scottish Cup as well.

"We’re under no illusions how hard it’s going to be but certainly we don’t go there defeated.

“We go there with the mindset of giving it the best performance we can to give us the best chance of progression.

"We will need everything to go in our favour that day, we will need to play really well.”

Rangers had over 44,000 fans at their 3-2 Scottish Cup fifth round home success over Partick Thistle on Sunday, and a similar crowd against Raith would see Murray’s side benefit spectacularly from receiving half of the bumper gate receipts.

Gaffer Murray is himself a former Rangers player, having starred 43 times for the Ibrox giants between 2005 and 2007 before moving to Norwich City.

There is also great excitement amongst Rovers fans that he can also help the club defend the SPFL Trust Trophy in the aforementioned final against Hamilton, a side Raith have already beaten three times in the Championship this season.

Murray said: “Hamilton have improved every time we’ve played them. I thought they were actually decent here in the 3-1 game.

"I thought again just after Christmas and New Year they had improved again and they’ve obviously added a few players and regained a bit of confidence.

"It will be a very hard game, that's for sure. Personally I wouldn’t be looking too much into the previous encounters even although we won them because they’ve all been really tight games.

"Hamilton have done really well in recent weeks and they’ll be delighted to get to the final.

“Just like us. We don’t go in there thinking: ‘We’re going to lose’.

“And I’m sure Hamilton will be saying the same.”