Raith Rovers: Skipper Scott Brown assesses Kirkcaldy side's chances of overhauling Dundee United and winning Scottish Championship this season

Raith go into the Fife derby on 17 points from eight games, four points adrift of the Tangerines with a game in hand.

“Listen, I’m not going to say we’re going to win the league, we’re going to do this,” midfield ace Brown, 28, told the Fife Free Press.

"We have faith in ourselves obviously. But we know it’s going to take an incredible effort to win the league.

"I think everyone will agree that Dundee United are heavy favourites to win the league.

"They showed their quality on Saturday by winning 5-0 at Partick Thistle.

"We know we have quality, but listen, if we can make the play-offs then that would also be regarded as a good season.

"We are sitting second so we want to push as far as we can.”

On facing the Pars this weekend, Brown said he relished Raith’s 1-0 success at East End Park in the sides’ last league meeting on August 26.

He added: “It was really good to go to Dunfermline and get the result. We had a massive following that day.

"They were on a good unbeaten record and we managed to put an end to that. Raith hadn’t won there for a number of years as well so it was obviously good for us as a team to go there and post the three points.

"We know the importance of the game to everyone. At the end of the day it’s still worth three points.

"We need to go out there and play the way we’ve been playing and hopefully we can win and propel us up the table, hopefully closer to Dundee United.”

Raith go into the derby having been idle last weekend as the scheduled league clash at Arbroath was off due to safety fears amid the devastating effects of Storm Babet.

Brown said: “It was frustrating the game was off. But it probably worked out ok for us because obviously the weather wasn’t great and going up to Arbroath is hard at the best of times, never mind when the weather was as bad as it was.

"We’ll go into this weekend a wee bit refreshed hopefully and ready to go again.

"We’ve got higher numbers in the squad this season. There were times last season when it was particularly difficult when we only had one or two subs on some occasions.

"You’re not going to get 11 players playing well every week. You need to be able to go to your bench and change things and at times last season we didn’t really have that, through injuries, through smaller numbers.

"But the boys we’ve brought in have all brought quality. We’ve not just added numbers for the sake of it, these boys have improved us as a team and a squad.

“Even when I was out injured I was really impressed.

"I’ve obviously found myself playing out of position the last couple of games but it’s just one of those things and something that I’m happy to do for the team.

"We’re there or thereabouts where we want to be.

"It’s a good start but there is still a long way to go and we need to make sure we keep the form up that we’ve shown because we know in this league you can fall three or four places in pretty quick fashion if you find yourself not winning games.”