Raith Rovers: 2-0 Fife derby win 'full of desire and quality' says Neill Collins

In sharp contrast to Rovers’ flat display at the Falkirk Stadium seven days earlier, Collins’ revitalised troops turned over their arch rivals at Stark’s Park thanks to Dylan Easton’s brilliant first half free-kick and a second half strike by substitute Korede David, on for the injured Jack Hamilton after 64 minutes, after Paul Hanlon’s initial effort had been blocked.

And Collins, whose side have now moved above Dunfermline in the table into seventh spot with 18 points from 16 matches, told Raith TV: “If we continue performances like we did today – I think we showed that last week was nothing more than a blip.

"But you have to go out and show it. I think the players did that.

"Generally for me, they’ve really shown great attitude and desire.

"Sometimes when it goes badly wrong that’s the first thing to get questioned. But today they answered the questions, more than just desire, they played with a lot of quality throughout the game.

"Obviously it’s a moment of magic (from Easton) around the top of the box. He wins the free-kick, he scores the free-kick.

"No-one’s surprised when he steps up, it’s just fantastic.

"And then in the second half I thought we had a 20-minute spell where we got in the ascendancy.

"The second goal was after a team effort, keeping the ball alive. Because the one thing Kody (David) has shown when he’s been here is if he gets the ball in the box, he knows where the goal is.

"I’ve got to just mention that Kody has been really struggling this week with different issues and he was a late fitness test today.

"I think there’s a lot of players that wouldn’t have put themselves forward. And when Jack took his knock I asked Kody if he was ready and he said he was.

"I think that’s the kind of people that – when you talk about what you want in your dressing room – that was good, that was really positive.”

Describing the victory as “a proper team performance”, Collins added: “We were at our best in the first half, we could get the ball down and play and combine.

"We obviously had to make sure we played forward as well, make them defend.

"I thought their biggest threat was from restarts. They made us defend a lot from the keeper’s kicks, putting it right on top of us at setpieces.

"I thought we had some great bits of play, Aidan Connolly, LJ (Lewis Jamieson, Dylan (Easton), big Jack (Hamilton). They were all interlinking well.

"We managed to sustain a lot in their half. But it was a proper derby game, there were a lot of duels, a lot of tackles, a lot of challenges.

"But I just thought we managed to implement enough quality within that in good moments and it was enough to win us the game.”

Raith Rovers: Dabrowski, Stevenson, Murray, Hanlon, Freeman, Byrne, Matthews, Jamieson (Montagu 90+3), Easton (Gibson 81), Connolly (Dick 90+3), Hamilton (David 64).

Subs not used: Fordyce, McNeil, Mullin.

Dunfermline: Oluwayemi, Otoo, Benedictus, Comrie, Ngwenya, Young, Chalmers (Cooper 57), Ritchie-Hosler, McCann, Todd (Wotherspoon 70), Mebude (Sutherland 70).

Subs not used: Clay, Fisher, Fogarty, Kane, Mehmet, O’Halloran.

Referee: Calum Scott

Crowd: 5,542​

Raith Rovers travel to fifth-placed Queen’s Park in the league this Friday for a 7.45pm kick-off.