Ian Murray reckons Raith Rovers ‘missed the quality’ of their absent quintet as they exited the Premier Sports Cup.
A penalty-kicks bonus point after a disappointing 1-1 draw with Hamilton Accies saw the Stark’s Park side finish second in Group H behind Ross County.
The Kirkcaldy men would have needed a three-goal victory to have a chance of progressing to the knock-out stages as one of the best runners-up.
But they were made to pay for a lacklustre first-half display as they had to come from behind following Sean McGinty’s header early after the restart.
It was cancelled out shortly after by a fortuitous own goal from Lee Kilday but Rovers could not earn the win they wanted.
And Murray rued the absence of skipper Scott Brown, defenders Euan Murray and Paul Hanlon, and attackers Sam Stanton and Lewis Vaughan.
“It’s always hard in this competition to push players too much too early,” he said as he gave an update on the absentees. “But they probably all would have missed out anyway, regardless.
“They’re not bad. Hopefully we’ll have Lewis Vaughan back on Monday, hopefully we’ll get Scott Brown back at some point next week as well.
“Euan Murray as well. He was probably the one who was not far away the most. He just picked up a wee knock in training during the week.
“Then, there’s Paul as well, who isn’t far away. We’ll have to wait and see but this week might be a wee bit early for him.
Murray: ‘We certainly missed the quality’
“And Sam’s ill, so there’s nothing we can do about that.
“When you take five players of that quality out of any squad then any team is going to suffer a little bit.
“We just hoped that the boys who came in would step up to the plate and stake a claim for the game next week.
“But, as I said to the players at half-time, they hadn’t done that at that point.
“The second-half was a little bit better but we certainly missed the quality we had sitting in the stands today.”
A smattering of boos from the home fans at the interval was an indication of the poverty of the first-half action from Raith.
Oli Shaw proved a handful for the Rovers defence, seeing one shot deflected onto the roof of the net and Kevin Dabrowski deny him on three separate occasions.
After the goals at either end, the home side were vastly improved as the full-time whistle approached.
But it was then on to penalties for a bonus point that meant little to either side.
Murray: ‘We were really poor’
A full-house from Aidan Connolly, Callum Smith, Lewis Gibson, Dylan Easton and Jack Hamilton made the most of Dabrowski saving Kyle Macdonald’s first kick for Accies in a 5-3 success.
“Obviously, if we had won by a goal it wouldn’t have been enough anyway as it turned out,” added Murray.
“But we wanted to win the game anyway, regardless, to try to get another win on the board before the league starts.
“In the first-half, we were really poor, actually. In the second-half, we were a bit better; not brilliant.
“But we set the bar [in the second-half] for where we need to be in the bare minimum to compete in the Championship.
“We’ve had games in previous seasons where we’ve lost and games where we’ve not played very well. But we’ve always been aggressive and tried to close players down.
“But we sat off Hamilton for 20 minutes and they passed the ball around us. For a wee bit in the first-half it looked like men against boys at times.
“That’s really disappointing for us because I can’t label that at the team very often.”
