Raith Rovers: 'Injuries have hurt us but we need to be more streetwise' says skipper Scott Brown after missing play-offs

Midfielder Brown, 28, speaking after scoring with a long range shot in Saturday’s 1-1 home league draw against Arbroath, told the Fife Free Press: "It’s obviously been a difficult season. We feel like we have thrown points away but we’ve had a smallish squad.

"We have been tested a number of times like away to Inverness and away to Dundee where we’ve had hardly any subs.

"We’ve found it hard with injuries the past couple of games, not so much on Saturday but going into games with only 13 or 14 players is a tough ask for the boys.

"We feel we’ve not been far away. We obviously let ourselves down against Hamilton in the recent home league game (a 2-1 Raith defeat on April 4).

"We need to be a wee bit more streetwise and maybe the dirty side of the game has to be a bit better.

"It doesn’t feel we concede that many goals from open play. Very rarely do I feel this season that a team’s cut us open and we’ve deserved to lose many goals.

"It’s as simple as we have conceded too many goals from setpieces. I think 19 goals lost from setpieces in all competitions is probably the highest in the league and will probably be by far and away the highest in any league this season.

"This has probably cost us a good bit and it just shows you the fine margins.

“It’s been a topic of conversation the full season. It is hard to put a finger on why it is not working for us defending setpieces but we need to try and get it right for next season. It’s probably not just the defending of the setpieces, it’s probably the constant conceding of free-kicks around the box.”

Rovers go into this Saturday’s league game at Greenock Morton game sitting seventh in the table with 42 points from 33 games, having lost three and drawn one of their last four league fixtures.

Prior to that, a 1-0 SPFL Trust Trophy final loss to Accies was followed by a 2-0 home Championship success over Queen’s Park.

Brown said: "The cup final defeat was obviously hard to take because we’d done relatively well against Hamilton previously this season. But for whatever reason Hamilton have the number on us just now because we lost the league game as well.

"But it felt that our reaction after the cup final was really good, winning the game against Queen’s Park.

"We managed to get ourselves 1-0 up in the league game against Hamilton and teams that are wanting to get into the play-offs, if you’re 1-0 up they won’t end up losing that game.

"We know that Morton have got more to play for than us and we need to go down on Saturday and show that’s not the case.

"We need to play for ourselves, the manager, the club. We are playing for our own pride.

"We want to make sure we finish the season well and we don’t just let it peter out and turn into a drab affair.

"Morton are still looking at the play-offs so we know it’s going to be very tough but hopefully the boys will be ready for Saturday.”

Brown, who has scored three goals in 44 Raith appearances this season, revealed that his strike against Arbroath – when he shot home a Dylan Easton pass following Aidan Connolly’s short corner – had been practised in training.

He said: “We had kind of worked on that move with Colin Cameron (Raith assistant manager) on Friday.

"We had seen that Arbroath marked zonally so I thought we could exploit a late run into the box.

"The ball got sent back to me and I hit it. The goalie Gaston has really good for Arbroath for a number of years now and he probably won’t look back too kindly on the fact the shot went in.

"But I will take every goal I can. If you don’t shoot you’re not going to score.

"Obviously I was delighted to get a goal but I’ve been a wee bit disappointed with my goal return this season. Three is probably a couple lower than what it should be.

"If the opportunity comes up against Morton then I’ll try and shoot.

"I dare say I’ll have a few boys moaning at me if I don’t hit the target. Wee Aidan’s quite a good moaner to the right hand side of me normally.

"Sometimes you hit them, they go in and you silence them a wee bit.”