Raith Rovers boss Ian Murray explains ‘timidness’ of his players in Premier Sports Cup exit

Murray said: “I think on the sidelines, myself included, it’s a very easy game.

"You get a different view of everything and you’re willing players to go forward with the ball.

"When you’re on the pitch I know things can change mentally for you really, really quickly.

"You can hear a little bit of murmouring in the crowd, you can feel all eyes on you when you give the ball away. And it’s very, very hard to block that out.

"I juet felt at times, particularly when it was going like that, we were going back the way with the ball, taking a touch back.

"It was a little bit defensive and not quite believing in ourselves as individuals and as a team.

"The last thing you to say to the players is: ‘Be positive in your play. One v one, 10 v 10, 11 v 11, whatever it is. if you lose the ball and you’re positive and you’re trying to make things happen, that’s football. You’re not going to get every pass successful’.

"But I just felt we kind of went into playing the game as individuals: ‘Let’s look after ourselves more than anybody else’.

"It takes teamwork and workrate to win games. When we did get close to Hamilton and when we did up the tempo a little bit in the second half we showed that we’re always going to be a threat.

"We’ve set the bar now in terms of the second half performance.

"That has to be the lowest bar that we get to if we want to successful this season.”

When quizzed on whether he would be working on building up the players’ confidence heading into the new league campaign, Murray added: “Personality is one of the key factors.

"You have to go and believe in yourself. Over vthe last 20 years I’ve seen so many great training ground players who you look at and you play with and against and think what good players they are.

"Then it comes to game day and they just can’t handle the whole build-up, the whole occasion.

"They can’t handle when things aren’t going their way or they can’t handle when a mistake costs a goal, three points or a point.

"It’s about helping each other, it's about trying to get each other through those moments in games.”

With the league cup now out of the way for another season, Raith open their latest Championship campaign at Airdrieonians this Saturday with kick-off at 3pm.