MURRAY: There’s Excitement Around Opening Games

IAN MURRAY hopes his side can make home advantage count after yesterday’s 2022/23 cinch Championship  fixture release.

The Rovers boss reacted to his sides opening three games, with a trip to Aberdeen to face newly promoted Cove Rangers first up, before two home games on the bounce against Dundee and Greenock Morton. 

Murray is anticipating excitement surrounding the opening two games, as he looks to kick off the league season with three points in Aberdeenshire, in order to have Stark’s Park packed to the rafters and rocking when relegated Dundee come to Kirkcaldy the week after. 

He commented : 

“You can always try to guess the opening fixtures as to who you’ll get and to where you’ll get your points from but I personally think that it’s a really good game for us. Most people want a home game to start, but it doesn’t really matter – you’ve got to play everyone at some point. 

We’ve got two long away trips in succession with Aberdeen in the final League Cup group game before going to Aberdeen again to play Cove on the Saturday, which is fine. We’ve got two home games, straight after, with Dundee coming to us and then Morton visiting the week after. Cove will obviously be unveiling their Champions Flag so hopefully it’ll be a capacity crowd. There will be plenty excitement about the game as well with them having won the league last season and getting promoted.  

It’s a place I know well from going with Airdrie over the last two years but we’ll look forward to coming back for our first home game in the league too and it will be another exciting one with Dundee coming to town and not travelling too far. With the way season ticket sales are going, with well over a thousand, it’ll hopefully mean that the stands are rocking for that first home game.  Dundee will travel well too I’m pretty sure and if both teams get off to a winning start, then it will only generate more interest and publicity around the game. 

Murray insists that there are no easy games – with the Championship as tight as it ever has been.  The Rovers Supremo pointed to local rivals Dunfermline who let their eye off the ball last time out as he looks to avoid a startling repeat”. 

He continued: 

“You look down the league and as to what the league looked like last season, with that fixture list, there are no easy games. No team is any easier than each other and they’ll all match each other on paper too. We just need to look at Dunfermline last season, they were widely tipped for the title before a ball was kicked and after fixtures were released. That shows us we’ve got to keep our eye on the ball and not let our standards slip.” 

Back to News