Raith Rovers down to bare bones for third defeat on bounce at Dundee

Injury issues had left the Fifers struggling to muster enough manpower to fulfil that fixture at Dens Park and the scoreline of 3-1 run up by their hosts was an exact reflection of the ratio of substitutes the two teams were able to call on, Dundee’s bench hosting nine and their Kirkcaldy opposition’s three.

A warm-up injury sustained by Brad Spencer ruled him out of taking a place on the bench as planned, leaving Raith manager Ian Murray with only two outfield options – Ethan Ross and Greig Young, both brought on, 66 minutes in and 76 for Connor McBride and Scott McGill respectively – alongside substitute goalkeeper Andrew McNeil.

Robbie Thomson was between the posts for Rovers in Jamie MacDonald’s place, their regular No 1 having had to pull out with a bad back.

Bemoaning his injury-induced selection problems, Murray told raith TV afterwards: “We try not to look for excuses and think about things like injuries too much but it’s well documented that we’ve had an incredible amount this season and it’s not just been for a period of two to three weeks – it’s been throughout the whole season. We have to have a look at that.

“Jamie called in this afternoon. His back seized up unfortunately, so he couldn’t travel.

“Brad pulled up in the warm-up. He’s had a trapped nerve in his back and these things are notoriously hard to get rid of and he just didn’t feel comfortable. He made the right call because we’ve got a huge game on Saturday against Arbroath and we want to win as many games in our last four as we can.

“If you look at our team, four out of the back five that started against Queen’s Park were unavailable to us and we’ve had to try and fit people in to make sure we got a team on the park.

“I wasn’t trying to scare people when I said we might not be able to fulfil this fixture because if Scott McGill hadn’t returned from illness and if we’d picked up one more injury at the weekend, we’d have been down to ten outfield players. That’s the reality of the situation we were in.

“We’ll recover now for Saturday. We’ll patch boys up and we’ll get ready to go again.”

Dundee’s goals were scored by Zach Robinson at the double on 29 minutes and 53 and Alex Jakubiak on 75, with William Akio getting one back for Raith on 77.

Murray, 42, was glad to see Ross County loanee Akio get on the scoresheet, saying: “He didn’t have much to work with. He was playing against two very physical centre-halves who are very experienced and know how to play against one striker, but he took his goal and it’s another goal for him. It’ll keep him going and get his confidence up.”

Next up for Rovers, currently seventh in the table with 41 points from 32 fixtures, is a visit to Stark’s Park this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm, from the team immediately below them, Arbroath, on 32 points from as many games following their 2-0 defeat away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Tuesday.