‘I didn’t really enjoy it,’ says Raith Rovers manager Ian Murray after his side’s first win of new season

Striker Jack Hamilton scored his first goal for the Kirkcaldy club with five minutes on the clock and Lewis Vaughan doubled the hosts’ advantage from the penalty spot nine minutes later.

The Fifers weren’t able to keep that two-goal lead intact until half-time, however, as Robbie Muirhead got one back for Morton on 17 minutes and Robbie Crawford equalised for the visitors on 71, though they only managed to maintain level pegging for five minutes.

Raith manager Ian Murray was glad to see his side pick up all three points – extending their current unbeaten run over 90 minutes to seven competitive games, 11 including pre-season friendlies, their last defeat other than via a penalty shootout having been at Ayr United at the end of April – but he wasn’t so happy about how they went about it.

It was also Rovers’ first league win against the Ton in four attempts, visiting gaffer Dougie Imrie’s side having won their last meeting 1-0 away in April and edged out the Fifers by the same scoreline at Cappielow Park in October, sandwiching a 2-2 draw at Stark’s Park in December and an SPFL Trust Trophy penalty shootout victory at home for Raith earlier that same month.

“First and foremost, I’m delighted to get the three points,” Murray told Raith TV afterwards.

“It was a really, really tough game and a really competitive, physical game as well.

“Morton are always very, very hard to play against. They do what they do very well and we have to acknowledge that, but I didn’t really enjoy it, to be honest.

“That’s not what I’m in the game for. I like to play football and we didn’t play very well.

“We just didn’t do things very well at times. We got sucked into Morton’s game-plan and that’s on us, not on Morton, because we know what they do and they’re good at it.

“We just maybe scored our first two goals a wee bit too early, as bizarre as that sounds. At 2-0 up, we got a wee bit sloppy and conceded a really poor goal to make it 2-1 and that was a killer for us because if we’d got to half-time at 2-0, it would have been a completely different game, and we then conceded again from a corner kick.

“At that point, if I’m being honest, I’m thinking it was deserved for Morton and we’d be lucky to get out of the game with a point.

“On the positive side, once again, in the face of adversity, the boys have pulled together and come through. We’ve scored another three goals and we’ve got four points out of a possible six.”

Next up in the championship for Raith – boosted by captain Scott Brown’s return to action as a 69th-minute substitute after months out injured – is a Fife derby at Dunfermline Athletic on Saturday, August 26, but prior to that, they’ve got a trip to Edinburgh’s Easter Road this coming Sunday, with kick-off at 2pm, for a Viaplay Cup second-round tie against Hibernian.