Raith Rovers left-back Lewis Stevenson and Greenock Morton right-back Cammy Ballantyne vying for the ball during a 2-0 away defeat for the Fifers at Cappielow Park on Saturday (Photo: Roddy Scott/SNS Group)Raith Rovers left-back Lewis Stevenson and Greenock Morton right-back Cammy Ballantyne vying for the ball during a 2-0 away defeat for the Fifers at Cappielow Park on Saturday (Photo: Roddy Scott/SNS Group)
Raith Rovers left-back Lewis Stevenson and Greenock Morton right-back Cammy Ballantyne vying for the ball during a 2-0 away defeat for the Fifers at Cappielow Park on Saturday (Photo: Roddy Scott/SNS Group)

2-0 defeat at Greenock Morton sees Raith Rovers miss chance to get into top half of football’s William Hill Championship table

Raith Rovers passed up an opportunity to go into a two-week break from competitive action in the top half of football’s William Hill Championship away to Greenock Morton on Saturday.

A win at Cappielow Park would have taken the Fifers up to fifth place but that’s a position now occupied by their hosts, their 2-0 win against the Kirkcaldy club at the weekend having moved them above their visitors in the standings.

That result – secured by second-half goals from Motherwell loan forward Filip Stuparevic, from a Zak Delaney cross, on 49 minutes and Michael Garrity on 54, also from an assist from defender Delaney, in front of a crowd of 2,976 – leaves Raith third from bottom, on seven points from eight fixtures, with Morton manager Dougie Imrie’s men on nine from eight.

That was their first loss to Morton since April last year, having won two of their games against them last season and drawn the other two.

New manager Neill Collins’ Raith side are now out of competitive action until a visit to Stark’s Park from fourth-placed Queen’s Park on Saturday, October 19, with kick-off at 3pm.

Collins, 41, was disappointed not to have been able to follow up his team’s 1-0 win at home to Falkirk seven days prior, telling Raith TV afterwards: “It was very, very frustrating. In the short time I’ve been here, that’s probably the day that I think I’ve learned the most about the group and unfortunately it’s taken a very sore defeat.

“There was lots I wasn’t overly happy with but I don’t think there was a lot in the game. I just think we were victims of our own mistakes and created our own downfall, so I was very frustrated at the end.

“In both boxes, we’re going to need to be better because that’s where games are won and lost.

“For their first goal, we weren’t good enough in our own box, but equally to blame was the amount of balls we put in their box that we should have been on the end of but weren’t, and everything in between is kind of almost irrelevant.

“There are a lot of tight games in this league and you want to make those tight games go in your favour.

“We had enough set-pieces but why are we not getting on the end of one? Why are we not getting the first contact on one? On every one, there seemed to be a Morton head.

“It’s an important part of the game and we need people that are going to come up and score goals from those moments.

“Ultimately it’s about scoring goals and keeping them out – it’s as simple as that.

“I think we had more than enough opportunities around the box to make that final part but we didn’t, and Morton were pretty clinical with what they had and that’s us on the wrong end of a defeat.

“We need to be able to take our chances and create chances in those moments.

“A win today would certainly made us all feel a lot better going into this break after the first quarter of the season but the thing is that there are three-quarters left and a lot of football left to be played.

“We had some really tough lessons to learn today but they’re ones that we’ll need to learn for the last three-quarters of the season.”

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