Raith Rovers 2-1 Stranraer: Late Euan Murray winner spares Raith's blushes against League Two side in Premier Sports Cup

Leading after just five minutes when Jack Hamilton blasted home Josh Mullin’s cross from the right, Raith were stunned when their League Two visitors netted a shock equaliser six minutes from time when a swift breakaway ended with Elliot Dunlop striking home a beauty after Ryan Edgar’s pass.

But Raith spared their blushes in the 90th minute when Lewis Gibson’s free-kick from the right was headed in by an unmarked Euan Murray to seal the three points in dramatic fashion.

“It was a very hard game,” gaffer Murray told Raith TV. “Stranraer came and played very well in the match as I knew they would.

"I thought this was going to be a really tough game tonight, especially at home against lower league opposition.

"We had loads of the ball but football unfortunately is probably harder with the ball than it is without the ball because you can close spaces down, you can block off channels, you can block off areas.

"I’ve got to give credit to the players as well, the character that they showed to come back so late in the game.

"But we want to do it in a better fashion and we’re not going to shy away from that, but the overriding factor at the moment is that I’m very happy to be six points out of six.”

When asked if it had been difficult to generate the pace of the match in a relatively ‘flat’ atmosphere, Murray replied: “It is to an extent but we have to be ready for that and we have to be better than that to go and block that sort of stuff out and make sure the tempo on the pitch is really high.

"I felt in the first half it was decent, I thought we dominated the first half to be honest.

"Second half, I felt we were sloppy, our tempo dropped, we weren’t forward up the pitch quick enough.

"The players were not moving up the pitch as quick as we wanted them to for whatever reason.

"A couple of guys went into their shell. Again, we can’t hide away from that fact.

"The demands and standards that have been set here over the last 12 to 18 months in particular, we can’t do that.

"It’s not going to be good enough in our division if we want to be successful.

"So we have to get over that hurdle very, very quickly.

"On the flip side I always believe a little wake up call is never a bad thing in this game.

"And certainly the quicker you get it the better, if you can get out of it with a win even better. But it’s not often you get away with that.

"We’ve got our six out of six but we’re not going to kid anyone on, we want to be better than that.”

Raith – who had started their league cup section with a 3-0 triumph at Stirling Albion last Saturday - continue their group campaign at Ross County this Saturday, before ending it at home to Hamilton Accies on Saturday, July 27.