Raith Rovers: Manager Ian Murray praises his troops for digging out vital win at Hamilton Accies

Jamie Gullan’s fine early volleyed strike at the far post won the day for Raith at the ZLX Stadium, with the sixth-placed Kirkcaldy men prevailing and moving onto 27 points from 20 games despite seeing Aidan Connolly’s second-half penalty saved by home keeper Ryan Fulton.

"You’re always concerned when you’re not winning games,” Murray told the Fife Free Press. "There’s no point pretending you’re not because you want to win every game.

"We weren’t overly concerned. I felt our last performance against Morton was really, really good.

"Yes we were 2-0 up and we go 2-2 but the actual performance, especially the last half an hour was really good, excellent, the best we’ve been for a couple of weeks.

"So I asked the players to continue that. I felt we gained confidence in that game.

"There are fine margins in football. We could be sitting here with two wins (before Accies game) because we had one cleared off the line against Arbroath in injury time and we had a really good opportunity to win the game against Morton.

"On the flip side we could be sitting here with another draw because the margins are so small in the game and moments are so huge in the game.

"To get three points, fantastic. They showed determination, big character, real grit and desire to win the game. I’m happy but they’re delighted.”

Raith endured a nervy finish to the Hamilton match when home sub Andy Winter's shot from distance flew just wide.

“I don’t think the player connected with it brilliantly,” Murray said. “I think it maybe hit his shin a little bit and it is going away from goal.

"But I’ve seen it happen a million times where they just nestle in the side of the net and it would have been an absolute heartbreaker for us because we’d worked so hard in the game and Hamilton will be saying the opposite, heartbreaker for them because it went the other side of the post. They also worked really hard.

"If you keep giving opportunities to teams to cross the ball and hit shots from the edge of the box they will score goals eventually and we had to tighten up at half-time.

“It had to be a gritty win really. It was a really close game.

"I think we limited Hamilton to not many chances. Obviously there was the one in the second-half when Jamie (Raith goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald) makes a really, really good save. He’s worth his wait in gold Jamie.

"But we had opportunities to extend our lead. None more so than with the penalty kick which we didn’t capitalise on.

"I thought we started very well and got a really good goal. We looked really dangerous then, Hamilton grew into the game, showed some really good energy actually and made it a right competitive match for us."

On Raith’s two second-half penalty shouts for challenges on Lewis Vaughan and Jamie Gullan respectively, Murray added: “I thought there was a penalty on Lewis Vaughan.

"I felt he was pulled back. Because Lewis is pretty lethal from that distance, no reason to go down.

"But we didn’t get it. I thought the penalty we got was maybe slightly soft as well, but the referee has called it as he sees it.

"I don’t have too many arguments with the penalties we didn’t get because I know it is a split second decision and the referee has to make that decision.

"Overall I thought it was a really, really competitive Championship game and I know Hamilton are bottom of the league and they’re struggling a little bit but I thought they gave their manager and their club everything.”