Raith Rovers: Skipper Scott Brown suffers fresh injury blow but brave visitors hold Livingston

A brave Rovers performance saw them withstand late Livi pressure at Almondvale, with the Kirkcaldy side having had to cope with a major blow just 11 minutes into the match when skipper Scott Brown had to leave the field with what looked like a recurrence of the calf injury problems which have plagued him this season.

“It was definitely a well earned point,” ex-Aberdeen manager Robson told Raith TV. “My message to the players was clear, we need to cut out the silly errors.

"I think we’ve won a couple of games where we’ve run over the top of teams and won 2-0, won 3-0.

"And then the Airdrie game, for me I don’t think we deserved to lose that one either.

"And then the mistakes at the weekend there, when we actually had a better xG (expected goals) than Queen’s Park.

"So to come here, get a clean sheet, play the way we did and have the two best chances in the game, I was really pleased.

"I thought structurally we looked good, we limited them to a few chances.

"We lost Scott Brown to an injury which is disappointing, and big Euan Murray.

"That’s because we’re asking the players to go to the well all the time in the last few weeks and sometimes these injuries happen.

"We executed the game plan fine. We wanted to press their centre-backs, force them in, we did that. They kept getting turnovers, we tried to transition on them.”

Robson stressed the difficulty of going in against a Livingston side who have been flying high near the top of the table in recent weeks.

He said: "This is not a game where you can try and be dangerous. Livi have got a great press, they’re aggressive.

"It’s not a game with the surface where you’re trying to play out and your goalkeeper’s stepping out with the ball, he’s trying to ping the ball to find the spare man.

"It’s a difficult place to do that so we tried to simplify the game.

"I know the last 15, 20 minutes it’s a team that’s trying to win the league, they’re going to throw these balls in on top of you.

"But we controlled the game well at times without the ball today. I thought this was the hardest place to come in this division away from home, a lot of Premier League players in there and we more than handled it.

"That was a big point, I thought the boys were excellent and we could have come away with the win.

"To achieve anything in this division you need to be able to do a bit of everything as a team.

"Tonight we changed up a wee bit and we got our rewards for that.”

Mid-table Rovers, who have 34 points from 27 matches so far in Scotland’s second tier in the 2024-’25 campaign, have a blank afternoon from competitive action this weekend.

They are next on league duties in a home fixture against local rivals Dunfermline Athletic on Friday, March 14 in a 7.45pm kick-off at Stark’s Park.