Reaction following the first victory of the season courtesy of the official club site.
Understandably boss Gordon Dalziel was a satisfied man at full-time this afternoon.
“Obviously I’m pleased to get the first 3 points on the board. The way I look at it is that we’ve got four points out of the last six and I think that’s positive.
“When you see the team and the kids that started the game and the kids that were on the bench, everybody played their part.
“I don’t think the supporters could fault them for their work ethic today and I think they got what they deserved in the end. I’m delighted for the players but I’m delighted for the club first and foremost.”
Gordon agreed that Hamed Sacko had been a major contributor to the win – as had his striking partner, John Martin.
“He (Sacko) looked excellent and John Martin always looked a problem with his pace for balls over the top. Obviously we had to go with that pair because we had no-one else but it worked for us today.
“But I thought everybody played their part. You’re looking at young Bruce Raffell, Lloyd Young and Paul Millar at left back - a lot of young kids in there - but I knew they would give me effort, commitment and desire to play for Raith Rovers and play for that jersey and that’s what they’ve done.”
The last thing that you want when you’ve gone a goal in front is to lose 2 players to injury and Gordon admitted that the squad didn’t have the personnel to stay with the 3-5-2 formation the team started with after the loss of Jonathan Smart.
“You think you’re luck’s against you. We lose our goalkeeper, which is always a massive position, plus we lose our centre-half, and I thought big J was playing superbly. All of a sudden you’ve got to chop and change a wee bit and that caused us problems for about 10 minutes because you know St Johnstone are going to come out and have a wee go. And they’ve got 1 or 2 bits of quality in the team that can hurt you.
“But my players stood up to that challenge and the young boys became men today.
“The problem is to ask them to do it week in and week out but we’ll enjoy this Saturday and the supporters in the town will enjoy it.”
Gordon can see the advantages in next weekend’s clear Saturday.
“It gives me time first and foremost to clear the injuries up. It gives me time to get them on the training ground and address the fitness because we were tiring near the end because the players had given everything they had. They had nothing left to give.
“It’s great getting the result but I know the size of the job here. But the great thing is that we’ve started and I’m going to enjoy the three points as much as anybody.”