Jimmy Nicholl is not known for his love of hyperbole so when the Cowdenbeath manager describes this week's SPFL Championship play-off final against Dunfermline Athletic as the most important Fife derbies ever, then it is worth taking note.
The winners of the tie - which begins on Wednesday night at Central Park - will earn lucrative rewards from games against Rangers, Hearts and perhaps even Hibernian next season. The cost of defeat is higher still.
"This may be the biggest ever Fife derby between the two clubs," said the Cowdenbeath manager. "The future of Cowdenbeath lies in the hands of those players over the next two games.
"If I was one of them I know what my motivation would be. The thought of anyone from Dunfermline running out at Ibrox or Tynecastle next season would absolutely kill me and I'd want to make sure that doesn't happen. If we play to our best we can beat anyone and I know we're good enough to get past Dunfermline."
The Fife side were certainly good enough to ease past Ayr United on Saturday. Goals from top scorer Kane Hemmings, Greg Stewart and Tom O'Brien gave the home side the win on aggregate, despite a riposte from Michael Donald. He scored before half-time.
Ayr are consigned to another season in League 1 and Mark Roberts will lead the way as manager after signing a new one-year contract. It was not an announcement greeted warmly by all of the part-time club's supporters.
"The fans can shout all they like but it doesn't bother me," he said. "I've been in the game for a long time and I'm not going to cry about it. They've got their opinion but I don't agree with them. I believe I've done well here."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article