Raith Rovers exited the Scottish Cup as they lost to Hibs for the second week in a row.
Rovers failed to cash in on a good first half showing at Stark’s Park and paid the price after the break as two goals in two minutes from Darren McGregor and Dominic Malonga sent the visitors, backed by a large travelling support, into the fifth round.
The result means Raith have lost all four meetings with Hibs this season but Stark’s Park goalkeeper Kevin Cuthbert felt that the matches could have gone the other way.
“Hibs have beaten us four times but I don’t think you can say over the games that they were much better than us to win all four,” he said.
“We made it a cup tie. The boys smashed into tackles early on and it felt like we were the dominant side in the first half. We looked like the side that was going to score, if anyone was.
“We’re more disappointed with how we came out in the second half. I don’t think we created as much we maybe need to be more clinical in the opposition third.
“But we need to be more solid at the back as well because we’re losing goals when we’re on top in the majority of games. We’re disappointed, but we’ll take the positives from the game and move on.
Raith made one change from the 1-0 league defeat at Easter Road the previous week with Iain Davidson returning to the defence while Hibs were without top scorer Jason Cummings.
The match would also be the final game of Jon Daly’s career with the big Raith striker hanging up his boots to take up a coaching role at Hearts.
Raith put a lot into the first half, but they were unable to make the most of some promising attacking moves.
The hosts were almost gifted an opener on 15 minutes as Marvin Bartley turned James Craigen’s cross towards his own goal, forcing Mark Oxley into a reflex save.
Raith produced a move that deserved a goal on 24 minutes as they turned defence into attack with pace but Rory McKeown fired high over the ball after racing onto Craigen’s cross at the back post.
Craigen had a chance to open the scoring six minutes before the break but after running onto a Daly knockdown he toe-poked his effort wide from 12 yards.
Raith had restricted Hibs in the first half but the visitors improved after the break and it took a superb finger-tip save from Cuthbert to prevent Chris Dagnall opening the scoring on the hour-mark.
However, the opener was only delayed by two minutes as Hibs right-back Darren McGregor raced on to a sliced clearance to fire a powerful swerving shot under Cuthbert from the edge of the area.
Before Raith could recover, Dominic Malonga doubled Hibs’ lead with a superb strike from 25 yards leaving Cuthbert with no chance, and the visitors saw the game out comfortably in the end.
Rovers boss Ray McKinnon admitted that his team lacked the clinical edge up front to make the most of their spirited first half.
“I thought we were excellent in the first half but you need to capitalise especially against a really good team like Hibs,” he said.
“We never done it and we paid the penalty in the second half. But I can’t fault my players again they gave it everything but ran out of steam in the second half.
“It’s very difficult to dominate a team like Hibs for 90 minutes and when they had their spell they got two goals that’s the difference.”