Raith Rovers boss “devastated” as defender McKay is ruled out for the season

The 22-year-old picked up the injury in training just before lockdown but the club only learned the full extent of the injury on Tuesday.

Manager John McGlynn said he was “devastated” to have lost one of his key players before the season has even begun.

“It’s a massive blow for the boy,” he said, “he will need an operation and it will take him eight or nine months to recover so he will miss the whole season.

“He did it on a Friday morning in training, but we didn’t realise it was that bad. It wasn’t like Lewis Vaughan’s at Forfar for example, it seemed innocuous.

“We were treating it in that early period and then lockdown came in so it’s only been in the last couple of weeks that we could get the scan, then we had to wait on a consultation and got the news.”

McKay’s operation is scheduled for August 21.

The Stark’s Park boss rued McKay’s blow as another in the run of bad luck his side have had on the injury front over the past couple of seasons.

“We aren’t going to have our full strength squad to choose from. Again. Before a ball is kicked we’re already a man down,” he said.

“You hope every time that we’ll get a clean bill of health and get a run at it.

“There are other teams that will go with 18 players injury-free for a whole season.

“Last season, aside from MacLean and Baird, both of whom were only here short term, Benedictus, Davidson and MacDonald, every other player got injured at some point during the season..

“But saying that, I don’t know of many other teams at our level who could have had that amount of players missing and still been successful.”

With the SPFL arbitration ruling finally confirming Rovers place in the Championship, McGlynn can finally start to build a squad for the season ahead.

The players are scheduled to begin pre-season training on August 17, with McGlynn confirming that long-term absentee Lewis Vaughan is fit to return.

“Lewis will be like a new signing,” he said, “he offers so much to the team.

“We’ll have a good six or seven weeks before the start of the competitive games so we’ll break them in fairly gently to start with and then we’ll pick it up.

“I know within two weeks the guys will be champing at the bit to get a game of football, so we’ll be looking to get bounce games and behind closed doors games to get up to speed.

“We’ll have better options than the Premiership clubs who have ended up having to play each other. By the time we go back we’ll hopefully get games against Premiership clubs who are up to speed, maybe their B teams.

“All the League One and Two clubs will also be looking for games at the same time so there will be options.”

McGlynn has targeted two new front men, a right back, a winger and a defender to add to his squad.

“Just now we only have young Jack Smith as a striker so we’re definitely needing to strengthen in that department,” he said.