Competitive season starts with East Fife

Saints get their 2018/19 season underway tomorrow when East Fife visit McDiarmid Park in the opening match of the Betfred Cup group stage.

Tommy Wright's men signed off pre-season with a convincing 4-0 win away to Berwick Rangers on Tuesday night following a competitive 2-2 draw with fellow Scottish Premiership side Aberdeen last Sunday.

He goes in to the match with no fresh injury concerns but Joe Shaughnessy, Brian Easton and Greg Hurst will all miss out.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow's clash - which is a 3PM kick-off - Tommy was happy with preparations for the new campaign and says his team are raring to go.

"We’ve worked hard over the past three weeks and you always want to get that first competitive game under you belt.

"So it's nice with the new format of the League Cup that you get competitive football a lot earlier and I think the boys are in a good place right now to get started.

"They got a little bit of extra time off compared to last year - when the majority of the players only had about 19 days - so they're feeling refreshed.

"We also managed to get our training camp in Austria which was absolutely fantastic. The pitches, facilities, and the setting were first-class.

"The players had a hard shift out there but also a very enjoyable time because it really was a lovely place to train each day."

On the club's final two friendlies, Tommy added: "I feel like we're in good shape and can take a lot of positives out of the Aberdeen and Berwick games.

"Against Aberdeen I felt we were the better of the sides over the course of the ninety minutes and we did well to come back into the game.

"Then against Berwick we played well - albeit against weaker opposition - and managed to score four goals but to be honest we created that many chances that on another night we could have had eight or nine."

Darren Young's East Fife finished 6th in League One last term, and Tommy admits he doesn't know too much about tomorrow's opponents.

"We've went to watch them a couple of times," Tommy said, "but on both occasions they had something like six or seven trialists playing.

"So we just have to focus on ourselves and what we're doing. We need to show good quality in the final third again, as we have done in our last two matches, and if we work hard and show the right attitude then I'm sure we'll be able to win the match."

The match is a 3PM kick-off and season tickets are valid for this match.

Both the East and Main Stands will be open, and season ticket holders from the Ormond Stand are welcome to use either of these stands on Saturday.

Away fans will be accommodated in the north end of the Main Stand.