After two defeats from their opening two Scottish Championship matches, Raith Rovers bounced back with six points from six.
Wins over Morton and Hamilton have got the season back on track after the first two league matches left some fans’ fingers hovering over the panic button.
The Scottish Championship is now wide open with no side winning more than two of their four matches so far.
Courier Sport spoke to a couple of Raith supporters to get their thoughts on the season so far.
A huge relief
Andy Harrow (Terrace Scottish Football Podcast)
If the first couple of weekends of the league season were concerning, the last two have allayed some of those fears.
Performances against Morton and Hamilton have been encouraging and, more importantly, they’ve both resulted in three points.
YESTERDAY'S GOALS | ⚽️
1️⃣ clean sheet
2️⃣ goals
3️⃣ points @DylanEaston31 and @GullanJamie scored in our win against Hamilton Academical yesterday 👏👏Highlights and Ian Murray's post-match thoughts are on the @RaithTV YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/zumNn5KOak
— Raith Rovers Football Club (@RaithRovers) August 21, 2022
If Ian Murray’s side are going to challenge for the play-off spots this season, they’re the type of fixtures that Rovers need to win – neither opponent is likely to push for promotion themselves, after all.
But given the opening two defeats, confidence amongst fans had been badly dented. Victories certainly weren’t a given.
In which case, that Rovers won both was a huge relief.
There were a few key positives to take away from the games.
For one, the young centre-back pairing of Ryan Nolan and Connor O’Riordan is beginning to gel, having earned their first clean sheet of the season against Accies.
Both have adapted to a difficult situation well and hopefully will continue to improve as the season goes on.
The other main positive was at the other end of the field, with four goals scored across the two games after drawing a blank against Cove and Dundee.
The team managed to create a host of chances against Morton and Hamilton and it was encouraging to finally see an end product.
The doubt remains whether Rovers have a consistent scorer in the squad, but it was promising to see some of the attacking players – Aidan Connelly, Jamie Gullan and Dylan Easton, who was excellent against Accies – get on the scoresheet.
Watching @DylanEaston31, putting on a show 🎪🔥 #YourRovers pic.twitter.com/xQNBVs3Zqe
— Raith Rovers Football Club (@RaithRovers) August 22, 2022
The wins haven’t completely wiped out the concerns about the squad.
The lack of depth at centre half and centre forward remains, the team is short of experience in key areas and having no proven goalscorer could be costly.
But there’s now something for the side to build on. Thistle on Saturday will be a huge test but at least Rovers go into it on a high.
Murray momentum?
Martin Glass (Raith Rovers supporter)
The last four weeks have already shown how truly unpredictable this season is going to be.
We were absolutely bullied by Cove first game of the season – who many predicted to be in a relegation fight – not a great start.
Quickly onto title favourites Dundee and I believe we did not deserve to leave that game empty-handed.
We were more than capable against a very average team.
These two games alone show the complexity of this league: getting hammered by the newly promoted and going toe to toe with the team relegated from the Premiership which has a massive budget.
That was followed by two wins against teams who will be looking at us the same way we are looking at them – beatable.
YESTERDAY'S GOALS | 📽️ @LiamDick and @aidanconnolly3 scored the goals in our win against Greenock Morton FC yesterday 👏👏
Full highlights and Ian Murray's post-match reaction can be found on the @RaithTV YouTube channel here 👇https://t.co/ZbzgRtIOEm pic.twitter.com/ye2KOy8KND
— Raith Rovers Football Club (@RaithRovers) August 14, 2022
Wins against Morton and Hamilton hopefully shows something we were missing with John McGlynn – the grit to get these sort of fixtures nailed down.
These two games could have easily been draws under McGlynn – maybe the Ian Murray revelation is finally starting to gather some momentum.
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