What an incredible 90 minutes of football both sides put on in front of the TV cameras at Stark’s Park.
The game looked to be coasting to a pretty comfortable away win for the visitors as the sides left the pitch at half time, with Queen of the South 2-0 ahead.
But the match exploded into life in the second 45 with goals, a sending off and an injury-time winner leaving fans gasping for breath.
John Baird may be a hero in the eyes of the Rovers fans for his Ramsdens Cup winner over Rangers last season. However, the frontman showed no sentiment for his former side when he put the Doonhamers into an early lead by bundling a loose ball over the line.
It was one-way traffic as Queens penned their hosts deep into their own half.
It took Raith more than half an hour to give Queen of the South keeper Alexander Clark any work to do, when he needed to beat away a Martin Scott effort.
James Fowler’s men picked up where they left off at the start of the second half and took just moments to pester Ross Laidlaw’s goal again.
Danny Carmichael was the man making a nuisance of himself this time and he was unlucky to watch his effort come back off the post.
It was little surprise when Queen of the South grabbed the game’s second goal.
Kevin Holt picked out Gavin Reilly, who again had managed to work plenty of free space for himself inside the Rovers box, and he calmly swept the ball home.
Raith boss Grant Murray needed to change things, and the introduction of Mark Stewart from the bench had an immediate effect.
The striker had barely been on the park a minute when he got on the end of a through ball and nudged his effort past Clark.
The goal injected a real purpose into Raith that had been lacking and they were level shortly afterwards.
Ryan Conroy’s strike was beaten out by Clark and first to react was Christian Nade, who bundled the ball home.
The drama just didn’t stop as Queen of the South found themselves down to 10 men when Holt was sent off for a lunge on Jason Thomson but just moments later they found themselves back in the lead when Derek Lyle finished off an Iain Russell cross.
Fans were on the edge of their seats as the game flowed from one end to the other.
Raith pulled themselves level for the third time in the match when Stewart got in behind the visiting defence to net.
Raith deserve enormous credit for their comeback, but the game was to take yet another twist deep into injury time.
Russell’s strike looked to catch a deflection on its way to goal and, agonisingly for Raith, found its way past Laidlaw.
Raith boss Murray said his side gave themselves too much of a mountain to climb by shipping four goals at home.
He said: “I’m disappointed from our point of view especially the way we defended. In the last three games, as a team, we’ve defended very well.
“We got ourselves right back in the game after being 2-0 down and get the upper hand, but we’ve just switched off.
“But it was a night when plenty of chances were created and it was a case of who was going to make the most of them.
“It’s just a pity we lost one so late because it had been a good recovery. For us to have been 2-0 down it could have been a good point, but we’re going away with nothing.
“We had an opportunity to go second, but we never took it, so we’ll lick our wounds.”