Raith Rovers' McMullan hoping to get firing again after injury
As a player who endured a horrible last three months of the 2025-2026 campaign as he missed out due to a serious knee injury which required surgery, the last thing Raith Rovers’ Paul McMullan needed was being crocked again after injuring his ankle in Rovers’ 2-0 home loss to Livingston on September 25.
The 30-year-old Stirling-born star joined Raith’s lengthy treatment table list for a couple of weeks after that, before making a successful comeback as Stark’s Park gaffer Dougie Imrie credited him with ‘turning the game’ when coming on as a half-time substitute as McMullan helped the team battle back from 1-0 down to secure a 1-1 league draw at Stenhousemuir last Saturday.
“It always helps when the team can score 30 seconds into the second half,” McMullan told the Fife Free Press.
"Everybody then feels a bit better about themselves and gets going. It's always good when you come on to feel like it's having a positive impact and hopefully we can continue that this weekend.
"It was a tough game, there wasn't a whole load in the game. We could easily have come in 0-0 at half-time and still felt like it had not been great, but you go again.
"When you concede a goal from a setplay like we did, it probably felt like it was worse than it was.
"But we chatted about it at half-time and came back out ready to go for the second half.
“I've been pretty happy with my season so far.
"I picked up a wee knock a couple of weeks ago but I’m happy with getting back out now and hopefully I can continue from where I left off.
"I'd just turned my ankle a wee bit against Livingston. I just needed a couple of weeks rest but hopefully I’m good to go now.”
When asked if Raith’s draw at leaders Stenny was proof that the Kirkcaldy outfit were justifiably in third place and in a title race, McMullan replied: “Aye, of course, we've played everybody now so you kind of get a rough feel for where you are.
"We’ve now got the reverse fixtures in this quarter of the season and at the end of that we'll have a good idea of what our season's going to look like, so hopefully for us we can keep our good run of form going.”
On this Saturday’s home league fixture versus fourth-placed Inverness Caledonian Thistle – a team Raith beat 2-0 away from home in thge league on September 5 - McMullan added: “All the games are going to be difficult in the league this year.
"Inverness are a good team, we've done well and got a win up there so they'll be looking for a bit of revenge coming down here. But hopefully we can play our stuff and get the win again.
"I always say you play the first couple of rounds of fixtures and you see where you are in the table. You try and get as many points on the board as you can obviously and we've started pretty well.
"We've got a tough run of games coming up so it's just about getting as many points on the board and seeing where we end up. After Christmas time, you'll see who's up there and see what it's looking like.
"Hopefully, we're in amongst that and whoever's up there we’ll be ready to take on.”