Many positives for Raith Rovers boss Dougie Imrie despite Jags loss
Despite a frustrating night which saw his side defeated 2-0 at home by Partick Thistle in the William Hill Championship, Raith Rovers manager Dougie Imrie remained upbeat after seeing the Kirkcaldy men dominate against the second-placed Maryhill outfit by recording 62% possession and having 10 goal attempts to Thistle’s eight.
While Raith missed some fine scoring opportunities and hit the bar after the break through Dylan Easton, the ruthless Jags took two of their rare scoring chances through Ben McPherson’s 40th-minute effort and Aidan Fitzpatrick’s killer goal four minutes into stoppage time in front of 2,482 fans at Stark’s Park on Tuesday evening.
And Stark’s Park gaffer Imrie told Raith TV post match: “It's simple, you can't keep making glaring opportunities and not taking opportunities.
"And I think if we'd gone up 1-0 – or I even said that half-time if we got the next goal - we'd go on to win the game.
"And I still believe that because we certainly had the ascendancy second half.
"But you can see the frustration when we do make good opportunities and don't take them. It breathes into the players, you can see that.
"And that's maybe where we lost our composure within the game to stop moving the ball quicker, side-to-side, to hurt them down the sides.”
What didn’t help Raith’s prospects was losing impressive right-back Jordan Doherty to a hamstring injury to a hamstring injury after 36 minutes, when he was replaced by Jai Rowe.
Imrie said Doherty’s injury “wasn’t looking great” and he would likely miss Friday’s home league game against Ayr United as the matches come thick and fast.
Raith now go into that fixture against The Honest Men sitting seventh in the division on 30 points with six league matches remaining, a distant seven points below fourth-placed Dunfermline Athletic and the final Premiership play-off spot but just two points below the fifth and sixth-placed teams Ayr and Queen’s Park.
However, such is the cutthroat nature of Scotland’s second tier, Raith are also only five and six points respectively above the bottom two sides Ross County and Airdrieonians, so Imrie’s boys will need to add some more points between now and the end of the campaign to secure their Championship berth for next season.