Raith left on the brink as Adam rolls back the years
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RAITH Rovers have it all to do in the second leg of the Premiership play-off semi-finals after two moments of magic from Charlie Adam and a late goal from Osman Sow gave James McPake’s men a 3-0 lead ahead of the return fixture at Dens Park.
Adam, 35, produced two sublime defence-splitting passes for Jordan McGhee either side of half-time to leave the Tayside club with one foot in the playoff finals in an entertaining contest in Kirkcaldy before Sow provided the cherry on top.
Raith had plenty of the ball but struggled to get out of their own half, save for the odd driving marauding run down the left from Kieran MacDonald, and it was the full-back who was partly to blame as Jordan McGhee stroked home the opening goal with 20 minutes played.
Charlie Adam received the ball just beyond the halfway line and spotted the run of his team-mate, lofting a wonderful ball over the Raith backline. MacDonald was caught sleeping, unaware of McGhee darting in behind and the central midfielder showed great composure to calmly slot the ball past Jamie MacDonald on the volley to hand McPake’s men the advantage.
It could have been 2-0 when Adam hooked in another inviting ball from deep but Jason Cummings’ header lacked the necessary conviction to truly threaten the Raith goal, while Liam Fontaine’s follow-up was ruled to be offside.
That near-miss looked to have sparked the hosts into life. A superb, free-flowing move up the park resulted in Reghan Tumilty prodding the ball in at Adam Legzdins’ near post, only for the linesman to incorrectly raise his flag for offside and chop it off as Dundee went in at the break with their lead intact.
Raith pressed admirably for an equaliser straight from the restart before becoming undone as the Adam-McGhee axis got into full swing once again. The former threaded a magnificent through ball behind the home defence for the latter to scarper after, and McGhee kept his cool to take a touch under heavy pressure and prod the ball home.
The hosts’ promotion hopes were then all but killed off when Adam released Max Anderson on the counter, with the teenager squaring the ball to fellow substitute Sow to thud the ball in and leave Raith with a mountain to climb.