Preview Stenhousemuir

This season`s games between Dunfermline and Stenhousemuir have been thrilling affairs. Next installment:- Saturday 8th March at East End Park.

This Saturday is only the second league match between Dunfermline and Stenhousemuir at East End Park since September 1985.  There have been 81 meetings between these teams.  The Fifers have won 39, Stenhousemuir 22 and 20 matches have been drawn.

This season`s games between Dunfermline and Stenhousemuir have been thrilling affairs. The first fixtures back in August at Ochilview saw the Fifers come back from three goals down to win 5-4 scoring three goals in the last six minutes of the match.  In November`s home game Dunfermline came back from twice being behind to win 3-2 with a 92nd minute Allan Smith strike. That was followed up with a New Year fixture at Ochilview where yet again it was a late late show from the Pars. This time Stenny thought they had gained some retribution with an equaliser six minutes from full time only to suffer from a 91st minute winner from Andy Geggan that made it 2-1.

Fixtures between the clubs have yielded several high scoring games. The best Pars result was an 11-2 win in 1930 but there have been two 7-1 games at East End Park and other scorelines at home against Stenny have been 5-1, 5-2 and 4-3. The Warriors have themselves won 5-3, 4-3 and 4-1 at Dunfermline.

Their 4-1 over Forfar Athletic was Stenhousemuir`s first win of 2014. They did have a very creditable 3-3 draw against Rangers at Ibrox just two Saturdays ago but their Scottish Cup exit to Albion Rovers and defeats at Arbroath and Forfar and draws against Airdrieonians and East Fife have contributed to their slide out of the play off spots.

Dunfermline will be desperate to extinguish the memory of last Saturday`s fruitless trip to the far south west where Stranraer inflicted a 3-1 defeat on them. That was quite a set back given the string of three good league wins before that. The Pars have won both their last two home games by 3-0..

Last Time Out

DUNFERMLINE (v Stranraer): Ryan Scully; Ryan Williamson, Danny Grainger, Jonathan Page, Callum Morris, Andy Geggan (c), Stephen Husband, Josh Falkingham (Alex Whittle HT), Ross Forbes; Lawrence Shankland, Faissal El Bakhtaoui (Ryan Thomson 68).
SUBS NOT USED: Ross Millen, Lewis Martin, Allan Smith, Shaun Byrne, Ryan Goodfellow (GK)

STENHOUSEMUIR (v Forfar Athletic): Chris Smith, Eddie Malone, Nicky Devlin, Ross McMillan, Stewart Greacen , Josh Watt (Sean Lynch, 65), Darren Smith (Kevin McKinlay, 89), David Rowson, Bryan Hodge, Sean Dickson, Sean Higgins (Errol Douglas, 78)
SUBS NOT USED: Brown Ferguson, Dean Shaw, Ross McNeil, Ross Brash

Referee will be Crawford Allan.