Stand-in captain Euan Murray proud to wear the Raith Rovers armband

Although the 25-year-old admitted he was caught a little off guard after being thrown the armband shortly before kick-off on Saturday.

“I had enough on my mind going back to centre-half!” he said. “I was just trying to concentrate as much as I could on the game.

“It’s something I was happy about - that the gaffer trusts me like that - and something I’m proud of.

“But for me Bene is the captain, he’s certainly my captain anyway.

“He got a bad one last week and hopefully he makes a speedy recovery.”

While Murray was happy to lead the team out for the first time on Saturday, he was more pleased with the manner of the 4-1 victory over Montrose.

“The three points was the most important thing,” he said.

“It was a good performance as well which showed a different side to us.

“It showed we can go and win a bit nastier and maybe not as pretty as we have been playing.”

Rovers played a more direct game against Montrose with less emphasis on passing out from the back and more focus on getting balls forward quickly.

“It’s something we spoke about,” Murray revealed.

“It’s game-to-game, and I don’t know if we’ll play that way every week, but it’s something the gaffer identified about their back three.

“In this league in particular, sometimes that is the way to go about it, and it certainly worked today.

“But it only works if the strikers and midfielders get up and work as hard as they can.

“The boys put in a great shift and in the end we ran out comfortable winners.”

After following up Saturday’s win with a hard-fought draw in Dumbarton, Murray is hopeful Raith can find the consistent winning mentality that has eluded them throughout the season.

“We can say we’ve played good football, and at times we’ve passed teams off the park, but we’ve too often come away without winning,” he said.

“The most important thing for me as a player, and especially at this club in this league, is winning.

“We know ourselves it hasn’t been good enough but it has been frustrating at times.

“Even last week against Arbroath we thought we actually played well when we broke it down and watched the video.

“It just was that we were not ruthless enough or didn’t capitalise on things. Today we got that ruthlessness back about us, and scored four goals.”

Murray also backed John McGlynn to be a success despite a tough start to his second reign at the club.

“I can understand why people are frustrated about where we are, but from someone who works with the gaffer and Smudger every day, it’s so enjoyable, and as a player I’ve certainly come on this year,” he said.

“Last season at full back I felt it was more, get it to wide man and back it up.

“The gaffer has opened my eyes in terms of using my pace and power getting forward, and now he’s put me back at centre-half, he’s given me the confidence to just play my normal game.

“I’m just enjoying my football.”