Manager on Thursday

09/05/12: Jim Jefferies talks about preparations for First Division football

As anticipated Jim Jefferies will give some of his squad players a run on Saturday against Killie. Bernardo will play in goals and some of the fringe players and some coming back from injury:-

"I have stuck with mostly with the experienced set up because I didn't want to make too many changes with eight games to go."

Jim will meet John Yorkston on Friday ahead of a planned Board meeting next Tuesday. Not until after that will the Manager know what his budget is going to be for First Division football next season:-

"Depending upon the outcome of that then I can probably speak to the players towards the back end of next week. They will not be in training next week but they will make themselves available to come in and see me at different stages of the day, Thursday and Friday.

"The only thing that will make it easier for me is if anyone, as is their right because they are out of contract, decides to move for something elsewhere. That might make it easier for me to decide that someone else should stay. Some people I might have to lose that I don't want to and on the other scenario, I might have to keep some boys, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, because you are going down a division and you might not get any better or attract anybody better than the ones that you have. You have to be fair with everybody and I told them that this morning."

There has been a view expressed by John Yorkston that next year's First Division will be of a greater appeal to the fans than the SPL might have been. The Manager agreed that the attendances against Falkirk last season and at the matches against Raith Rovers were better than many achieved in the SPL where 10,140 against Celtic was the best of this season.

"You could expect Falkirk and Dunfermline to be challenging for the title again. If you are winning in whatever league you are in and putting on something that the fans want to come along and see maybe these games will make up. The bottom line is that you want to be in the best league that you can, the only saving grace is that when you go down there it is not as big a financial disaster as you might fear. You lose out on the prestige and the TV money but I think there is a parachute payment.

"The idea is to make sure that we are not down there too long. We want to get back in one go. I always knew that going down was a possibility and it will be a new challenge. It is a wee while since I was in that league.

"I brought Falkirk up in the first year I was there. But when you have a good team like that you lose them - Kevin McAllister went to Hibs, Neil Duffy went to Dundee - so we went down. We beat Hearts 6-0 that year and got a standing ovation before bouncing back up."