Ian Murray is adamant Raith Rovers are in the title race for the long haul after victory over Partick Thistle lifted them to within a point of Dundee United at the top of the Championship.
The message from the Stark’s Park boss to his player after a hard-fought 1-0 win at Firhill was to ‘believe’ they can pull off a shock and pip United to top spot and automatic promotion to the Premiership.
The Kirkcaldy outfit had to dig deep against Thistle and enjoyed a slice of fortune in injury-time when Harry Milne’s header crashed back off the post.
But, after seeing his side create history with a fifth straight Fife derby win at the weekend, Murray is convinced there could be even greater days ahead.
He said: “It was a tough, tough game. We’ve had two really hard games now in the space of four days.
“Derby games are very, very difficult and we had to follow it up really quickly.
“You can’t pick a harder place to come than this [Firhill] on a Tuesday night trying to pick up three points to stay in a title race.
“But we’ve done it, which is really, really good.
“We know there’s eight games to go now and we’re a point behind.
Raith ‘not going away’
“My message to the players before the game was every time we lose a game everybody thinks that’s us done and we’re going to go away.
“But I keep saying, we’re not going to go away because it’s getting too tight to go away.
“We’re still going to drop points, I’m pretty sure of that. But we know if we don’t drop enough points we win the league.
“That’s basic maths, but it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be really difficult.
“We’re a point off with eight games to go. I kept saying to the boys with 20 games to go, ‘you’ve got to believe in yourselves’, and again with 15 games to go.
“We have to believe in ourselves with eight.”
Euan Murray was the goal-scoring hero for Raith 11 minutes before the break.
And then the defender and the rest of the Rovers rearguard had to stay alert at the other end of the pitch as time ticked away and Thistle piled on the pressure in search of a leveller.
Murray added: “I actually felt in the first 20 minutes of the second-half we were the team that was going to score.
Murray: ‘Stand up and be counted’
“But the longer the game goes on without scoring the second then they’re going to come at us, and we had to stand up and be counted.
“They put a lot of dangerous balls into the box. The one that hit the post can go in, it can go in off the post or fall to someone to tap in.
“It was our night in terms of that one.
“We take it and go back home down the road.”
