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Raith Rovers 0 Hamilton 1: Hosts hit with sucker punch

Kevin Moon (left) is challenged by Hamilton's Grant Gillespie.
Kevin Moon (left) is challenged by Hamilton's Grant Gillespie.

Raith Rovers failed to live up to the pre-match hype as they kicked off the league season with a home defeat to Hamilton.

Last week’s 6-0 win over Queen’s Park in the League Cup had raised expectation levels at Stark’s Park ahead of the Championship curtain-raiser but Rovers found the going much tougher against a physical and well-organised Accies side.

Raith left-back Callum Booth was disappointed that the team were unable to take their good cup form into the league.

“It’s a terrible start,” he said. “We thought the game was going to finish 0-0 and to concede from a corner is hard to take.

“We’ve had a good pre-season and we think we’ve got a right good chance this season, so we just need to move on.”

Booth earned the sponsors’ man of the match but that was of no consolation to the on-loan Hibs man.

“I played all right, I can play better, but it’s not about me. I’m more disappointed we ended up getting beat,” he said.

“We’ve been working hard all week only to end up losing on the Saturday, which we’re all gutted about. We’ve got a tough game next week at Cowdenbeath so we need to pick ourselves up for that.”

Hamilton bossed the opening exchanges and could have taken the lead on two minutes but John McShane’s shot on the turn lacked the power to trouble David McGurn.

Rovers’ goal was kept intact by some fantastic last-ditch defending from centre-backs Dougie Hill and Paul Watson, who each made timely interceptions to prevent clear shots on goal.

Rovers barely threatened in the opening half but, when they did get forward, some good balls into the box found no takers.

The home side pressed forward after the break and, on the hour mark, Kevin Cuthbert made a diving save to keep out Hill’s header from a Joe Cardle corner.

Rovers were enjoying their best spell of the match when Hamilton hit them with a sucker punch with 20 minutes left.

A swift counter-attack ended with McGurn making a good save at his near post to keep out Darian MacKinnon’s pile-driver but, from the corner, Rovers failed to win the header, and a knock-down fell to the feet of James Keatings, who made no mistake from four yards out.

Raith boss Grant Murray said: “We felt that at the time we lost the goal we had the better of the game. After that, we stopped doing the things that were hurting them, and that’s disappointing.

“There will be lots of games decided by one goal this season, that’s the type of league this is.”

Hamilton player-manager Alex Neil, the stand-out performer for the visitors, was delighted to get off to a winning start.

“We limited them to very few chances and I felt we deserved to win the match,” he said.