Raith Rovers extend winless streak versus Morton to four games

The Fifers had looked to be on course to salvage a point at their Stark’s Park home ground in Kirkcaldy thanks to an 81st-minute Dylan Easton penalty, awarded by referee Dan McFarlane for a foul on Lewis Gibson by visiting goalkeeper Ryan Mullen, but they were denied that consolation by a tap-in past home No 1 Kevin Dabrowski by Michael Garrity at the start of eight minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game whistle.

Manager Neill Collins’ hosts’ other entry on the scoresheet was a Zak Delaney own goal under pressure from Paul Hanlon just ahead of the hour mark.

Morton’s other goals – from four shots on target, two fewer than their hosts – putting them 2-0 ahead, were both scored by Serbian forward Filip Stuparevic, on loan from William Hill Premiership outfit Motherwell.

The first, six minutes in, was a close-range follow-up after an Aaron Lyall was blocked and the second, on 25 minutes, was a header beyond goalkeeper Dabrowski from an Alex King assist.

That defeat was Raith’s second on the bounce against Morton, following one by 2-0 away at the start of October, with Stuparevic and Garrity on target that time too, and it extends their winless streak against the Inverclyde outfit to four games following two goalless draws last season in February and April.

Their last win versus Morton was by 2-1 on the road last October under previous manager Ian Murray.

Saturday’s loss in front of a crowd of 3,508, Rovers’ seventh reverse of the current campaign, leaves them sixth in the William Hill Championship table, level on 15 points from 14 fixtures with seventh-placed Hamilton Academical, their next opponents this coming Saturday away, and eight points shy of the division’s play-off places.

Collins blamed a slow start to the match for his team’s failure to come away with even a point, telling Raith TV afterwards: “With ten minutes to go, when we equalised, I thought I’d be standing here with at least a point, but I would say I was very disappointed with our start to the game.

“Our start to the game was much slower than it should have been. It lacked the intensity that we’ve shown at times. We didn’t win our tackles, we didn’t win duels.

“We didn’t set the right tempo, as we have done at home. That’s something that we’ve done well at home, but today we didn’t and we got punished.

“Despite that, we still created a lot of really good chances in the first half but we needed the tempo and intensity to be much better, and we saw that in the second half.

“When we’re not at our very best, we need to be able to be in games better, so that when we do show what we did in the second half, we’re in a much better position to capitalise.

“Coming back from two-nil down was great but I don’t think we should have put ourselves in that position to start with.

“Football’s cruel, because we could easily have been standing here, having won 3-2, and we’d all go home really, really happy, but instead we’ll all go home very disappointed.”