Raith Rovers: Striker Lewis Vaughan reckons Hamilton Accies keeper Ryan Fulton ‘had game of his life’ in cup final

Despite being down to 10 men for the last 35 minutes after Daniel O’Reilly’s sending off and being bombarded by Raith who had almost constant possession, Accies survived with Fulton making stunning stops from Vaughan (twice) and Sam Stanton in his player of the match display.

Referring to Fulton’s two stops from him, Vaughan told the Fife Free Press: "I thought both of them were in, to be honest. He's probably had the game of his life.

"On another day I have two goals and we probably win the game.

"Especially after the second save, I was thinking: 'Whatever I do here, I'm not going to score’.

"I did everything but score, the second one I caught too well, it's luckily (for him) hit his hand and gone out for a corner.

"The first one I tried to a glance a header and he's managed to, somehow, roll it up his body and tip it over the bar.

"Fair play, but it's hard to take. I'm gutted. The first half kills us. We weren't good enough in the first half, they score a goal. Three or four of their players go off injured, it kind of kills the game. We couldn't get the ball down an pass in the first half.

"Second half, I thought we were the better team, we absolutely battered them. The sending off maybe helps Hamilton, I don't know.

“On another day I maybe could have scored two goals.”

Although Raith’s fine cup exploits have ultimately ended in disappointment, there is still plenty to play for this campaign as they host league leaders Queen’s Park this Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm, upon the resumption of their Scottish Championship season.

Rovers go into the match in seventh place on 38 points from 28 games, seven points behind fourth-placed Partick Thistle – who have played two more matches – in the final play-off spot.

"We can't let Sunday’s defeat define the season,” Vaughan said. “We need to concentrate on the league now.

"Eight games to go, eight cup finals to try and get into the play-offs. We need to take it on the chin. It hurts right now but we have to pick ourselves up and go again.

"If you told me six months ago we'd end up in a cup final after four ACL injuries, I wouldn't believe you.

"It hurts that we got beat today but we have a lot to play for before the end of the season.

"Even at the end, we never gave up. We never will give up.

"We'll try our best to get into the play-offs until it's impossible.

"The manager told us to be proud of ourselves for getting to the final in the first place, with a hard run.

"You look at the squads we had in the previous games, we had two subs.

"We had the hardest run to the final we could have had. We did amazingly to get there, it just wasn't our day today.

"He was trying to pick us up and be ready for next week."