Dunfermline match not a 'must win' despite points gap, says Falkirk defender Coll Donaldson

The Pars sit top of the third tier table on 39 points, having lost just once on League One duty so far this campaign under boss James McPake.

Centre-half Donaldson, 27, told the Falkirk Herald that the Bairns squad want to put things right after the most recent match ended in a 1-0 win for Dunfermline.

He said: "You need to be careful with the idea of a game being a ‘must win’ because what happens when you don’t win it? Is that just your season over? Of course it isn’t.

"We are desperate to win the game but if we didn’t win it I wouldn’t say the league is over.

“Look at how unpredictable the league has been this year. Teams can pick up wins against anyone at any time. We need to foucs on ourselves and try to go on some sort of run.

“When you look at the league so far, Dunfermline find themselves in the position they are because they have been the one team to do that.

“We want to turn our season around going into the second half of it and I think that we can do that. We know what it means to the fans and we couldn’t send them home happy in the last derby.

“That match was one of the best atmosphere’s that I have played in throughout my career.

“What I would say though is that these games with Dunfermline are a bit like ‘one off’ matches. You do need to approach them like that.

“I was saying to Brad McKay, who I played alongside at Inverness Caley Thistle, that this season so far has reminded me of our games against Ross County in the Highland derby.

“We played in six of them and we were honestly the better side in five of the matches but only won one of them.

“In that match that we won, it was the one game we actually didn’t play that well and they were the better team.

“If we play badly for 89 minutes on Monday and score a last minute winner, I’d take that. We don’t have to play the most amazing football in the world, we just have to find a way to win the game.”

Donaldson is hoping to be included in John McGlynn’s starting line-up at East End Park despite having not played since the defeat to Dundee in the SPFL Trust Trophy back on Thursday, December 8.

After hitting the yellow card suspension limit, he was forced out of the Bairns last match against Queen of the South.

He added: “With us being able to bring the game forward a day so we didn’t play on Christmas Eve, we were able to take a couple of days off which never really happens in football. It was a nice bonus and we were still back on Boxing Day training, but to have like nine days build-up to a game at this time of year is something really unusual.

“Training has been great because when you have a game of this size coming up, there is that wee bit extra edge to it. The magnitude of the match speaks for itself. We want to put things right because we felt like we played better at their place earlier in the year than we actually did at our place a few months back.

“I’ve not played in a while because of my suspension carrying over from the postponed Alloa game to the Queen of the South game. I am desperate to get back out there.”