As the masters of late comebacks this season, Aidan Connolly insists Raith Rovers have plenty of reasons to believe they can still realise their Premiership dreams.
The Stark’s Park men suffered a significant blow to their promotion hopes when they fell to a 2-1 defeat to Ross County on Thursday night.
The first-leg loss on home soil leaves them with a huge challenge to turn things around in Sunday’s rematch in Dingwall.
But Sam Stanton’s 82nd-minute strike has given Ian Murray’s side hope of turning the tie on its head and reaching the top-flight for the first time in 27 years.
And, with Josh Mullin passing up a gilt-edged opportunity for a late equaliser, Connolly reckons Rovers’ grandstand finish can also help ramp up the pressure on County for the second-leg.
“Getting the goal was important, because anything can happen now,” said Connolly.
“If we’d gone up there 2-0 down it’s obviously a big task.
“But, as we know, so much can happen in football.
“The way we finished has given us plenty of confidence ahead of Sunday.
“If you ask them, I think they’ll say we’re a decent team who caused them problems and created a few chances.
Connolly: ‘The pressure is on them’
“In football it’s not done until it’s done, we’ve seen it so many times before.
“The pressure is on them and you know what pressure does to people – it can make you crumble.
“When we started believing a bit better, you could see us passing it around and causing them problems.
“I thought towards the end of the game we could have scored a second.
“Josh had a great chance to make it 2-2 and we could have been going up there level.
“It’ll be a tough game because they’re a good side. But we’ll go up there, have a go and see what happens.”
The tables were turned during Raith’s semi-final encounter with Partick Thistle.
In the previous round, Rovers plundered a 2-1 victory from their first-leg trip to Firhill – only to be pegged back by the Jags’ 2-1 win at Stark’s Park.
Manager Ian Murray has vowed to send his side out to ‘give it a good go’ in the Highlands.
And Connolly believes the Kirkcaldy outfit now have nothing to lose.
‘A tough game’
“It’s similar to Partick when we won 2-1,” added the winger. “But they came to our place, put up a fight and it went to penalties.
“When there’s just a goal between the teams you’re always still in it.
“We know it’s going to be a tough game, they’re going to try to dictate the game.
“So we’ll have to go there, keep it tight and try to nick a few goals.
“All the pressure is on County, we’ve got a free hit at it.
“We have had an amazing season whether we go up or not, we have had a great time.
“So we’ll go up there and have a go. We believe we can go up there and get a result.
“All season we’ve worked hard. It’s been tough because we’ve been in for nearly a year now.
“But when you looked at us in the final ten, fifteen minutes there we were flying.
“We looked the fitter team in the closing stages so hopefully that will be the same on Sunday.”
