Barry Robson admits he has work to do on Raith Rovers’ ‘mentality’ after a worrying collapse in his debut match in charge.
The Stark’s Park men conceded a goal inside two minutes before slipping 3-0 behind after just 25 minutes against Ayr United.
It could have been a whole lot worse as the hosts almost added further goals to George Oakley’s clinical hat-trick in a nightmare first-half for Robson’s tenure.
And the new Rovers boss has confessed confidence was clearly an issue as the Kirkcaldy men slumped to their first defeat in four games.
“We never started the game well,” said Robson, who gave Jordan Doherty his Raith debut as a half-time substitute. “You can’t start the game like that.
“We’re over-covering over the right-hand side and we lose a goal, lose a bit of confidence.
“And then there’s another one in and then you’ve got a real uphill struggle after that.
“I’ve seen games like that before, when you lose a goal as quick as that, and then another one goes in and it just sucks the life out of the team.
“When you see that, for me, you need to show a better mentality there.
‘Shore it up’
“When you lose those goals, you need to get together as a team. You need to organise and you need to make sure that for the next ten or 15 minutes, you shore it up and you try and get yourself slowly back into the game.
“There’s things that I can help them with, but they also need to realise that it needs to come from within, from them. We can sort them out with that.”
Raith’s afternoon got off to the worst possible start with the loss of Paul Hanlon to a hip injury in the warm-up, with Callum Fordyce called into the team from the substitutes.
Then, in an improved second-half, Liam Dick limped off with a muscle injury before Shaun Byrne followed following a heavy challenge from Ayr skipper Ben Dempsey.
Skipper Scott Brown, fellow midfielder Ross Matthews, full-back Fankaty Dabo, and strikers Jack Hamilton, Lewis Vaughan and Callum Smith are all sidelined.
“Yeah, I think so,” replied Robson when asked if the late change with Hanlon summed up their afternoon.
“Then, we lose Liam Dick and then we lose Shaun Byrne. We’ve still got maybe four or five regulars back at the stadium as well.
“It’s frustrating on that part.
“The biggest concern for me is the injuries. At the end of that game, I think there could be seven or eight players that would normally start or be involved.
“You’ve got some experienced players missing to probably help calm the other ones down a bit. That’s the frustrating part.”
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