Dean McMaster expects an epic encounter at Stark’s Park this weekend, with hosts Raith Rovers gunning for a promotion play-off spot while the Diamonds battle for Championship survival.

With four games of the campaign remaining, Airdrie make their final trip to Fife to take on Barry Robson’s Rovers, and midfielder McMaster wants to build on last week’s fantastic win over Partick Thistle – when some desperate last-minute defending turned into a match-winning attack.

“It was good, the goal that made it 1-1 was a bit of a gutter but it was a great reaction from the boys. The changing room was buzzing, so it was good!

“Recently we’ve been really good at that – last year we were more possession-based, but this year at times it’s not went like that and we’re really good on the transition.

“I think other teams now recognise that once the ball does break, we’re sharp getting it forward.”

Although it has been something of a tumultuous season for Raith Rovers, with Robson the third manager in post since the beginning of the campaign, the Kirkcaldy side are hitting form at the right time as they look to sneak ahead of Partick in fourth place.

McMaster says Airdrie will be concentrating on their own aims, although the Diamonds expect another difficult encounter.

“They’re trying their best to get into that play-off spot, but obviously we won’t take our foot off the gas. We’ll go there and bring the intensity, bring the quality we’ve got throughout the team, and hopefully get that win.

“It’s a hard place to go. We had a lot of success there last year, I don’t think we lost a game at all against them, but this year it’s been a lot tighter.

“It is two good teams going at each other, so it will be a tight game, but hopefully we have enough to go and get the three points.”

Each of the three previous meetings between the sides this season has ended in a 1-0 home win, Dylan MacDonald grabbing a second-half winner on the opening day before Scott Brown’s strike settled the tie at Stark’s in October.

Lewis McGrattan scored the only goal of the game in some style in February, the midfielder coming off the bench to curl home an outstanding 78th-minute finish in another 1-0 victory for the home side.

Airdrie will be hoping to buck that trend on Saturday, and McMaster says the Diamonds are a different proposition to the threadbare squad that visited Fife in October.

“I feel like it’ll probably be night and day. Obviously then results weren’t going our way – the boys have never really chucked it, but one goal and the heads would go down.

“Now it’s like when we conceded to Partick – here we go, we’ll get the next one.

“There’s a positive mood going into it, and we know that we can deal with adversity throughout the game.”

And with the club finally able to put an unmitigated injury crisis behind them, Airdrie are in a better position to fight for survival.

Dean is one of the players whose return from injury coincided with the Diamonds’ upturn in form, and he admits to wondering what might have been.

“It’s really frustrating, the fact that we couldn’t do this earlier, because I think we’d be in a really good spot just now. But that’s the way football goes, injuries happen and new boys come in and take time to gel, but now we’re looking forward to every game.

“You don’t want to be going into games that are meaningless and being safe in the pack, you want to be playing games to go and win and stay up.

“I think that’s the difference – we enjoy these games. A lot of the boys like playing under pressure and having the fact that we need three points.”

Player-manager Rhys McCabe knows that both sides have their own battles to win, with both performing well in recent weeks.

“Raith are in a good run of form, desperate to have a last push going into the final few games with the play-offs still firmly achievable for them, so I fully expect a tough game – as they always are.

“The way we’ve approached the last few games, performance levels have been very good against good opposition. It’s really important that we try to lean on the positivity and confidence that we’ve got.

“We know going away from home it’ll be a difficult task, and we know that we’ve got to make sure we put in another strong performance.”

Top scorer Ben Wilson is making progress in his bid to return from a recent hip injury, but defender Cammy Bruce (knee) and striker Aaron Reid (hamstring) remain sidelined. Defender Lewis Strapp’s chances of a return before the end of the season remain touch-and-go after sustaining an ankle injury in training.

Referee Ryan Lee takes charge of his third match involving Airdrie this season, having previously officiated December’s home defeat to Livingston and February’s 2-2 draw with Greenock Morton at Cappielow.

Match tickets are available using the link below, and our DiamondsTV video (subscribers outwith the UK and Ireland) and audio (pay-per-match worldwide) streams are available.