ATHLETIC head coach Stevie Crawford believes that a difficult week has created even greater togetherness as the club prepare to return to action.

Last Wednesday afternoon – after the Press had gone to print – the Pars announced that they had “suffered a transmission of COVID into our football bubble”, which led to the postponement of the Fife derby at Raith Rovers two days later.

Their home clash with Dundee on Tuesday followed swiftly, with the SPFL – who released a statement that confirmed Dunfermline had also been liaising with the Scottish Football Association, the Scottish Government’s Elite Sport Clinical Advisory Group and Test and Protect about the confirmed case – set to investigate, which they added was “in line with standard procedure”.

Crawford, who throughout the season has warned that coronavirus may be something they would have to deal with, is preparing his squad for tomorrow's home game with Greenock Morton and said that it remained a “fluid situation”.

On player availability, he was only able to confirm that Ryan Dow, who suffered an achilles problem against Raith Rovers last month; Lewis Martin, who has been missing with injury for the entire season so far; and Lewis Mayo, who was sent off in their last outing at Queen of the South, would definitely be out of contention to play.

Speaking this week, Crawford hailed his squad’s “terrific” attitude, and thinks that the setback they’ve faced over the last eight days will make them stronger as they push for a play-off place in the seasons run-in.

“We’ve acted accordingly when it was brought to our attention, and we’ve been in daily communication with the SFA and the Government over the problems that we’ve faced,” he explained.

“It’s brought a little bit of disruption to training, and limitations put on the training working week last week, and this week as well.

“It’s something that we hoped that we wouldn’t have to face during the season but we find ourselves that we are. I’m a great believer in life that you can make things more difficult for yourself or accept what you’re facing, and we’ve accepted what we’re facing.

“What I will say is I’ve got a support staff here – in terms of people from above – and also the coaching staff by my side, and the players. Their attitude’s been terrific; we had a Zoom call last week because it does bring a little bit of uncertainty as well because football players are missing playing football. It’s managed to find its way in and you have to face up to it. We don’t feel hard done by; it’s something that the whole world’s having to face, and we’ve not taken it lightly.

“It puts a wee bit of a backlog in terms of the games and the fixture list but, at the end of the day, that’s something we’ll face collectively. It will bring us, and make us, stronger together in our end goal to try and finish as high in this league as possible.”

Crawford insists that the disruption the club has faced won’t be used as an excuse against Morton, who inflicted their only home Championship defeat in December.

“We won’t be using this as an excuse – far from it,” he continued.

“We’re very lucky; I think there’s a feel-good factor at this club at the moment where people are there to support one another through tough, testing times.

“It’s going to show the strength in depth that we’ve now got to our squad with the fixtures and the way they’ll possibly come out now. We’ll be reliant on everybody playing their part.

“We’ve got 10 games left and we’ve found ourselves in a really good position in the league to go and do something this season.”