Dylan Easton accepts Raith Rovers’ draw with Morton was a ‘missed opportunity’ – but he is confident they will not pass up a second chance to go top of the Championship.
The Stark’s Park men were held to a goalless stalemate on Tuesday night by their on-form visitors from Cappielow, who stretched their unbeaten run to an impressive 16 games.
Any disappointment at taking only a point was tempered by the fact league leaders Dundee United had slipped up with a defeat at home to Airdrie.
As a result, Raith moved level at the summit and will go three points clear if they can beat Arbroath on Friday night.
The Angus outfit are rock bottom of the table and reeling from Tuesday’s 6-0 hammering from Queen’s Park.
And Easton admits Rovers know exactly what is at stake at Gayfield.
He said: “It’s the old cliché, we’ve just got to concentrate on ourselves. But we’re always looking at others, we can’t deny that.
“We come in and we see that Dundee United have dropped points.
“So, it was probably a missed opportunity for us, especially being at home.
“But it’s obviously a valuable point as well. And all we can do is go up to Gayfield on Friday night and hopefully pick up the three points to take us top of the league.
‘A tough week’
“I know Arbroath took a heavy defeat on Tuesday night but they’re fighting for their lives and they’ll want to bounce back.
“So, we know we’ll need to be at it.
“You can see the squad depth we’ve got. It’s a tough week, with three games in six days.
“But we’ve got a lot of freshness there and hopefully we can go up there and get the three points.”
The visit of Morton was not the kind of game Easton relishes.
The Cappielow outfit can play good football but are robust in their approach and intent on winning the battle first.
It meant there was little chance for Easton to get on the ball and use his skills to open up the visitors’ rearguard.
Instead, there was a lot of running, tackling and covering back in defence for the 29-year-old.
However, he knows it is a side of the game that Rovers needed to improve on after the recent run of five straight defeats and the concession of 14 goals in just five home games.
He added: “We kew it was going to be like that. We know what Morton are like, they make it really tough and they’re on a great run. We knew what to expect.
‘More resilient’
“But I thought, to a man, we stood up to it and we did our defensive duties well.
“It probably wasn’t as pretty going forward, and we probably never tested their goalie enough.
“But, all in all, it was a fair result in the end.
“We’ve been working on it in the last few weeks, since before the Dundee United game.
“We had to be a bit more resilient and together in our defensive shape.
“Before that, we were conceding too many sloppy goals and probably being a bit more open.
“But since the Dundee United game, we’ve worked on it and come together and I think it’s been paying off.
“It was similar at the weekend at Ayr, we stuck together in a really good defensive shape.
“It was always going to be the same against Morton. We had to do our defensive duties and stand up to them because they’re very, very physical.
“We’ll take the point and move on to Friday.”
