Lawless up for Ayr

“It’s massive for us, so we need to be at it from the get-go.

The Dunfermline squad has been looking good in training and there is a certain energy about the place that hopefully can be taken into the game against Ayr United on Saturday. Stand in captain Steven Lawless feels that the six pointer against Lee Bullen’s side is a match where the team needs to embrace the challenge and put its stamp on the game:-

“These are the types of games you want to be involved in, you want games that mean stuff rather than meaningless games. We just need to meet the challenge head on and hopefully that can help us in our performance on the day and getting a good result.”

Players and fans look on Saturday as a massive fixture but as far as Dunfermline is concerned that term had been present in a great many of the recent games. Steven continued :-

“We’ve had good results at home and hopefully that will be the same again. We need to take the game to them and hopefully get the three points.

“We know the implication of not winning the game and it’ll be in their hands if we don’t but we just need to go into the game and try to put our personality into the performance. If we do that we can get the three points and put ourselves in a good position.”

The recent home win over Patrick Thistle lifted the Pars off the bottom of the league and then to win the derby over Raith Rovers was huge especially given the club’s league position created added pressure to get the result at home. Steven feels that the team can draw great confidence from these successes:-

“We know we’ve got those performances in us. It’s about turning up on the day and making sure we do everything right and everything we can to win.”

John Hughes encourages his players to impose their personality on the game and have that confidence to go and play. Steven believes that helps a player like him:-

“He wants to enjoy watching us play as well. It gives you confidence to go and try stuff. It would be very easy for us to change our style of play, given the situation we’re in, and just try to grind out results.

“In the away games we’ve not been at it and we’ve been disappointing, but at home we’ve definitely gone out and shown what we can do and we’ll be aiming to do the same again.”

Responsibility of wearing the captain’s armband Steven claims doesn’t really change very much:-

“It just means I have to go and do the coin toss with the ref. That’s basically it! I’m always vocal anyway, even when I’m not captain, and I just try to do the same. There’s not really any added pressure or anything like that. I just try to focus on my own game and hopefully put on a good performance and help the boys as much as possible.”

Steven is in no doubt that the Dunfermline players are putting in 100 per cent and not letting their heads go down when things go wrong:-

“You need to have the attitude that if you’re not having the best game on the ball or technically you still put the graft in. When things aren’t going your way you need to have that work-rate and desire to help the team in other ways.

“We dropped off a little bit last weekend against Kilmarnock but I think you need to give them credit as well, because their pressing was really good and it caught us by surprise a little bit.

“We were probably the better team in the previous games against them but they caught us off guard a little bit but we need to be prepared for that. Teams are going to try to nullify us, and we need to find ways round about that.”

Because of the positive effect on the team, Steven and his team mates are hoping for another good turnout on Saturday from their vocal home support:-

“Especially in the Raith game, when the fans were right behind us, they gave us an extra two or three yards and hopefully that can be the same again against Ayr. This is probably the biggest game of our season so far.”

Supporters Conduct Reminder

The home support has played a significant part in recent positive results and the club is grateful for this strong vocal backing. However, there have been several incidents at the Morton and Raith Rovers matches which breach league rules and break the country’s laws.

It is a reminder to all supporters that pitch incursions and the letting off of flares are criminal offences and bring the club in to disrepute. Please continue to give the club brilliant vocal backing against Ayr United but within the parameters of the laws.

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