Raith Rovers boss Neill Collins gutted by ‘sobering’ nature of 3-0 loss at leaders Falkirk
“To say that I’m disappointed would be an understatement,” Collins added. “I believe I believed we were second best throughout the pitch as soon as the first goal was scored.”
“We improved their appearance today, and Falkirk is a really talented side. From their point of view, John (McGlynn) will be content, but from ours, there are simply too many things we could do better.
“We were fortunate to get in at half-time 1-0 down. I actually thought from being second best pretty much all over the pitch in the first half, first five minutes of the second half I thought we were going to get back. But again we were fragile, lost the second goal and we didn’t do enough in all departments.
“It’s very sobering. I don’t think in my time as a coach I’ve had a 90 minutes quite like that one.
“We had spells in possession but we didn’t do anything.”
Falkirk went ahead after just five minutes when Alfredo Agyeman slotted home after Calvin Miller’s cross.
After Raith had lost skipper Scott Brown to injury – he was replaced by Kai Montagu – the Bairns went close to going two up when Calvin Miller shot just wide.
The hosts came close again on 36 minutes when Miller shot inches wide of Kevin Dabrowski’s far post.
It was one way traffic towards the Raith goal and Dabrowski made a smart stop after MacIver diverted Aidan Nesbitt’s long ranger towards goal.
Although Raith started the second half with more urgency, the hosts went 2-0 up in stunning fashion when Agyeman advanced and scored with a rasping low shot past Dabrowksi from distance on 57 minutes.
Falkirk netted a third when Keelan Adams scored with a headed effort.
In order to prevent substitute Callumn Morrison’s shot from wriggling beneath his body, Dabrowski then sprawled.
However, the damage was done, and Raith currently sit in eighth place in the Scottish Championship with 15 points from 15 games, 23 points behind leaders Falkirk, who have played more games.
Collins remarked, “I thought we started fine today.” However, they gained the upper hand after we were penalized and lost a goal.
“You don’t want to be behind them at home because they are a team.
I still expected us to put up more of a fight, give them more problems. We just din’t do that.”
Collins said that the injuries to Brown (calf) and Dabo (hamstring) would need to be assessed.
On hosting Dunfermline Athletic in the Fife derby next Saturday, Collins added: “Honestly right now I’m not really considering who we’ve got next week. I’m more considering about what we did today.
“But it’s certainly an opportunity for us to try and repay the fans who have turned up in terms of a derby win. But we’ll need to be vastly better than were we are.
