RYAN SCULLY has joked that he’s already had some banter with Sean Murdoch over taking his clean sheet record – but would gladly sacrifice it to guarantee more victories.

Since returning to East End from Greenock Morton in January, the popular 26-year-old has kept six shut-outs in seven games, and has gone 463 minutes without conceding since Ross County’s Michael Gardyne netted last month.

If he and his high-flying Pars pals keep Dundee United out on Saturday, Scully will equal the club record for most consecutive league clean sheets – currently held by Murdoch and Ian Westwater – and close in on the former’s record for the number of minutes without conceding.

It’s been an excellent return to Dunfermline for the ex-Partick Thistle stopper, who enjoyed two successive seasons on loan with the club in 2013/14 and 2014/15, and, when asked this week whether he’d discussed potentially matching his glove rival’s milestone, he laughed: “Sean just reminded me of that today.

“If I can – fingers crossed – it would be great but I’ll take the three points. I don’t mind.

“It’s great and I’d love to put the full praise on me but you need a full team to defend. It’s an old cliché but you need to defend from the front, and the boys have worked really hard and been a solid unit.

“We know there’s going to be times in games where pressure’s going to come on us but we’ve managed to keep a great shape, and the boys at the back have been putting their bodies on the line as well.

“It would be nice to kill the game off a wee bit earlier, and that’s something we could maybe look towards and try and do, but I think it’s pleasing for everybody at the club that we’re going in the right direction.

“Everybody knows their jobs and everyone trusts each other to do those jobs. Things are looking good for the run-in to the end of the season.”

When he was pitched in for his debut – ironically at Morton – immediately after becoming Stevie Crawford’s first signing in January, Scully joined a team that was seventh and looking nervously over their shoulders at the wrong end of the table.

But they now sit in the final promotion play-off place, 12 points clear of ninth and just three adrift of Ayr in third, and he sees no reason why they can’t pile pressure on the teams directly above them.

“I always knew that the squad we had was good enough once we got that wee bit of consistency, and a run of results,” Scully continued.

“I think we always had that belief in ourselves but we just had to pull together and keep believing. I think that was the key word, belief, as we’re a good enough squad to go and do it.

“It can be hard when results aren’t going your way, and you find yourself getting dragged into that relegation fight, so it was important to get that first victory against Inverness. Obviously, it was the gaffer’s first victory as manager as well, so it gave that wee bit of relief around the place.

“You can see that the boys have got a style of play now and are working hard to even improve on that, so things are looking good.

“We’ve set ourselves targets. Again, it’s the old cliché of taking one game at a time but we’re in fourth just now and we’re looking above us. Our next target is to try and get Ayr and dismantle them from third place.

“But we’ll just keep working away. We’ve got two massive games coming up, and after the Dundee United game we’ve got a wee bit of a break, but if we can get a positive result there’s no reason why we can’t keep pushing up the league.”

He added: “I knew there was a chance I might not get into Dunfermline’s team straight away but thankfully the gaffer’s shown that belief in me and hopefully I’ve done enough to help him with that choice.

“I always say it’s the happiest time I’ve had in football (his previous spell). It’s great to be back.”