MARK Russell says Morton are ‘itching’ to return to league football tomorrow night but insists the clash with Dunfermline will be far from an easy task.

Ton make the trip to East End Park to face Allan Johnston’s Pars having had two weekends without a fixture in the Ladbrokes Championship.

The Greenock men have played closed-door friendlies against East Kilbride and Stenhousemuir in the absence of action but Russell admits he and his team-mates are looking forward to the real deal.

But while the left-back has fond memories of the last time the two sides met — a game which ended 3-2 in the Ton’s favour — he doesn’t believe that gives his side any psychological edge going into tomorrow’s clash in Fife.

He told the Tele: “We’re really just itching to get back to playing normal, competitive league games. 

“We’ve obviously played a couple of friendlies and we’ve really trained hard over the two-week break but now we’re really looking forward to getting back to it.

“Coming back to a game after a while is one thing but against a team like Dunfermline it won’t be a walk in the park. They’ve been decent this season but we’ll go there and work as hard as we can.

“I don’t think the fact that we beat them last time will be any advantage to us. We take it as one game. 

“Maybe Dunfermline will be looking for that bit of revenge this time but for us it’s just another game to prepare for.”

Ton boss Jim Duffy had his squad in training yesterday after deciding against organising another bounce game. But Russell had no problems coming in on his day off.

He said: “I suppose it’s good that it’s only been two weeks and we’ve had friendly matches in between. 

“We were off on Saturday and didn’t organise anything but we were in training this morning [Sunday].

“It was a wee bit weird to be working on a Sunday because that’s usually our day off. But we were in to prepare for Tuesday’s game and I think that was good for us.

“I would say that it was good that we were in on the Sunday. 

“Of course we like having one or two days off but we all like to be in training and working as hard as possible. And we are all always looking forward to the games.”