Grant Murray admitted his side’s failure to get out of the blocks quickly cost them any chance of taking three points against Hamilton.
The visitors bossed the game after taking the lead with just a couple of minutes gone as Raith looked to be suffering a Scottish Cup hangover following their 3-2 win over Hibs last weekend.
Murray said the Rovers had been well warned about the threat likely to be posed by a Hamilton side smarting from a crucial promotion race defeat to Dundee a week earlier.
But Raith failed to heed his warning, and their slow start was punished by four first-half goals from a rampant Accies.
The Raith boss said: “We didn’t start the game well enough after coming from a high last week at Easter Road.
“I told them we couldn’t go in thinking it was great last week and everything would just happen against Hamilton.
“They were coming in off the back of a defeat as well and were wanting to stay at the top of the league and would be up for it.
“But everything they did in the first half turned into goals, while everything we did seemed to go out of the park.
“In the second half we got in about them and played how we should, but we need to start games like that.”
Anthony Andreu opened the scoring in stunning style when he lashed home a left-footed shot high into Lee Robinson’s top corner.
The same man made it two shortly afterwards when he headed home a James Keatings cross.
It was all too easy for the visitors, who increased their lead to three when Louis Longridge burst through the Raith defence and beat Robinson.
Raith were offering very little going forward and only had a tame Joe Cardle effort to boast of.
Hamilton surged further in front when Keatings was brought down inside the box.
He stepped up himself to send Accies into the dressing room with a four-goal lead at the break.
A comeback never looked likely.
However, Raith will have been glad to have at least scored when Cardle found space for himself inside the box and fired past Kevin Cuthbert.
The introduction of Gordon Smith and John Baird at the break had a positive impact on Murray’s men and it was Baird, making his home debut after returning to Stark’s Park for a second spell, who reduced the deficit even further when he did well to hold off his marker and beat Cuthbert.