The Thistle Archive

Craig Cairns, 04-Mar-2023, The Courier

After 15 attempts the opposition have finally got the better of Raith Rovers. That run has taken them far in cup competitions but a lack of wins in the Scottish Championship have left them struggling to climb the table. Saturday’s 3-0 loss at Firhill is a huge dent in their play-off aspirations. Rovers were missing Isma Goncalves and captain Scott Brown through injury, leaving manager Ian Murray light on bodies. A double from Scott Tiffoney and another from Brian Graham gave Kris Doolan the perfect start after he was named permanent Thistle manager earlier in the week.

Key moments: Both teams exchanged blows in the early stages though Thistle were the better across the first half overall. Connor McBride failed to pick out William Akio from a good opportunity in Rovers’ best chance of the opening 45 minutes but the home started to take control. They disrupted Riath playing out from the back with their high press and created a few opportunities in the process. Harry Milne flashed a dangerous ball across the goal midway through the half but it was through Tiffoney that they opened the scoring after Kyle Turner – who became more dangerous as it progressed – worked the space to send in an inswinger. Soon after the restart Jamie MacDonald was tipping over former Rover Graham’s effort from range. Soon after that Thistle doubled their through the big striker’s tap-in before Tiffoney finished off a counter-attack to for his second. Raith huffed and puffed in the second half but failed to test David Mitchell in goals until late in the game. Stanton forced a great save from close range before Mitchel saved a penalty and then got up straight away to save Liam Dick’s rebound attempt.

Manager under the microscope: Murray was dealt a double blow when Brown and Goncalves were ruled out ahead of the game. He kept the same formation, dropping Sam Stanton alongside Brad Spencer and bringing in Connor McBride. The away side were curtailed from passing out by Thistle’s high press and despite some nice passages of play in the first half they failed to take a grip of the game. Doolan’s men were by far the better side after half-time and the Rovers boss tried to make changes but was left with few options from the bench.

Rovers manager Ian Murray:

I felt we got was we deserved out the game, which was nothing. I thought for 20 minutes we did alright. They got a foothold on us, which doesn’t happen to us very often. But overall we didn’t we didn’t create enough. We didn’t defend properly, we didn’t match midfield runners. We were sloppy with the ball our quality was poor. We didn’t get our full-backs high enough or get our midfielders on the ball. It was a very difficult pitch for us to play our game, as well. We didn’t look comfortable on it. But when you’re not comfortable, you just get nice and tight and go long if you need to. I think the problem in the first half was the ball was that the ball was coming back to us too quickly.

Thistle manager Kris Doolan:

The day was absolutely perfect. I don’t think I could have asked for anything more than that. Great performance, score great goals and obviously keep a clean sheet and other results going our way as well.

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ROVERS RUN ENDED AT FIRHILL

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