League match day 3 sees the Rose having to travel over the Queensferry Crossing to Recreation Park in order to face Burntisland Shipyard for the first time in a competitive league match.
The last time the two sides met was two seasons ago in the second preliminary round of the William Hill Scottish Cup, where the Rose on that occasion ran out 14-0 winners. Both sides have had changes in management and playing personnel since then so a repeat is unlikely.
The Shippy drew a blank in their Qualifying league campaign, suffering narrow defeats at the hands of Dunipace, Musselburgh and Preston. They have managed to progress to the next round in two other cups however, with wins over Golspie and Ormiston in the Scottish Cup and Qualifying Cup respectively. In their sole league outing to date they were defeated by our former Superleague rivals Sauchie at Recreation Park.
Bonnyrigg's 100% start to the season ended last Saturday with a draw at New Dundas Park vs Dundonald and the manager will no doubt be looking for a positive reaction from his players at Burntisland, as it is fair to say that it was two points dropped rather than one point gained given the Rose were 3 goals up after 51 minutes. That takes nothing away from a Bluebell side whose heads never went down when behind and did tremendously to peg Bonnyrigg back, and could conceiveably have taken all three points back to Fife.
Holiday season continues to be an issue with some players returning from unavailability tomorrow while others become unavailable, so the expectation is that the starting XI will be different this weekend. The manager will be heartened by being able to bring on Moyes for his first competitive minutes this season last Saturday. No doubt any player selected will be looking to stake a claim for a starting berth for next Saturdays' important Scottish Cup tie at NDP vs Shortlees AFC.