Raith ready for Inverness challenge says Matthews

The midfielder said the 3-0 home defeat to the Dens Park side last weekend was far from ideal but hope he and his team mates can learn from the match ahead of tomorrow’s tie in Group D of the competition.

“Everyone is disappointed, obviously,” he said.

“It’s not the way we wanted to start the season. I felt there were just a couple of slack moments when we went behind and then it was difficult to get back into it.

Much like manager John McGlynn, who was sent to the stand after a disagreement with referee Lloyd Wilson, Matthews said he was also baffled by some of the whistler’s decisions.

Psychologically at 2-0 it might still have been possible to come back if you get a goal back, said Matthews, and in a contest like the Betfred Cup, it can go to penalties. But, the 63rd minute dismissal of Raith’s penalty appeal took away a big opportunity.

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“I think everybody is a bit frustrated at a couple of the decisions. Personally, I thought I should have had a penalty,” he said.

“Dundee had a lot of possession but, apart from until they scored the goal, I did not think they harmed us much.

“Don’t get me wrong - I thought they were a lot better than I had seen them play last season. They showed good movement - but we should be able to deal with that.

“We’ve definitely got a good enough team to deal with that, and we have just got to learn from it.

“We have got to play a similar kind of team tomorrow away from home and, hopefully, we’ll learn from the Dundee game and have a better performance.”

Despite the loss, Matthews says that the spirit is good among the squad and no-one’s confidence will be dented.

He said: “I would say we have really confident team.

“Everyone wants to take the ball, even when people are having bad games, they still want to take the ball and, if they didn’t, I think the other players would say something to them if they didn’t want to take it.”

Now Rovers face the long trip north to take on John Robertson’s Championship side Inverness.

The bookies are sure to make Rovers the underdogs for the match but Matthews says they’ll have no fears about matching up to the Championship side.

“We should be confident going into every game and we have a good squad.”

“I think we’ve got to be like that this season. Everyone has to want to get the ball and everyone has to work hard.”

Whilst hoping that Rovers can put together a decent cup run, Matthews says promotion is the team’s priority.

“As we’ve seen in the last two seasons, it’s not easy to get out of this league.

“We want to do as well as we can in the Betfred Cup but 100 per cent main focus is on the league.”