We can pick apart Raith

A league derby meeting between the two fierce rivals will kick off on Saturday when former East Fife boss Barry Smith returns to the club for the first time since his departure in the summer.

There’s no doubt Smith has signed well at Stark’s Park, adding two of the division’s most lethal strikers, Greig Spence and Liam Buchanan, to his side.

But although cautious of the threat posed by Saturday’s opponents, Young says the full-timers should be equally wary of the talent in his side.

He said: “They have a lot of good attacking players but when you look at our squad Kyle Wilkie is almost at full fitness, Mark Lamont is coming back, Nathan Flanagan is playing well and we have guys of the quality of Scott Linton on our bench.

“Chris Duggan got his goal at the weekend and hopefully that’ll start him on a wee run as well.

“He could have had a couple more as well so it shows we’re doing well in that area of the park.

“We’ll wait until the scout report comes back on Raith but we know how dangerous players like Liam Buchanan, Greig Spence and Lewis Vaughan can be.

“I know that Barry will have them really well organised and they’ll be hard to beat but we have guys who can cause them a lot of problems.”

East Fife will certainly go into the game with their tails up, recording their second league win in as many weeks at the weekend when they beat Arbroath 3-2 away from home.

Arbroath are typically a tricky side to beat at the best of times, but to score three into them on their own patch was impressive work from Young’s men.

And the Methil manager praised his men for taking the lessons learned on the training park across the white line with them at Gayfield.

“I was delighted with the whole performance,” added Young.

“We scored the three goals but could have had one or two more.

“Our first goal was something we’d worked on in training, getting the ball out wide and then back in across the goal.

“It’s great to see the guys go out and do it in a game.

“Arbroath is a hard place to go and get anything and I think all the teams in the league will find that.

“We spoke about starting the game well and wanted to get at them and force them to kick the ball long.

“We did that and managed to pen them in.

“They have a really experienced team but we kept them quiet and had the character to dig out a result.

“It was a really good team effort and three points.”

Kevin Smith, Jonathan Page, Mark Lamont and Chris Kane all missed out at the weekend but are stepping up their returns to full fitness.

Tickets for the general public ( East Fife end only) for the match against Raith Rovers on Saturday are still on sale at Bayview.

Visit the office, open from 9.15am to 4.45pm,Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday till 3.45pm. You can also buy over the phone and the ticket(s) can be held to collect.