iRN-bRU CUP
Raith boss Barry Smith had nothing but praise for his young team’s performance in Paisley against a much-changed St Mirren.
He said: “We have had a great start to the season and I asked the boys to be disciplined today.
“We went a goal down against a team that is top of the Championship so it was a big ask.
“We had a lot of young boys who have little or no experience but the heads did not go down when we conceded and we rallied straight away.
“Our main priority is the league – there is no getting away from that – but we want to do well in any cup we go into and the young boys today did very well.”
In a lacklustre opening 20 minutes, Saints enjoyed the majority of posession without creating any clear openings.
The first real chance came from a visitors’ corner when Lewis Vaughan’s delivery was headed goalwards by John Herron with Spence just failng to apply a vital killer touch from four yards.
Saints were unlucky not to go into the break with the lead after a fine Hilson effort from distance was pushed away by Smith for another corner and from this Jack Baird found his header hitting the cross-bar.
It took a moment of class to break the deadlock and this occured on 63 minutes minutes when Stelios Demetriou played in Hilson who knocked a delicious curling ball into the path of Reilly who fired home from six yards.
Rovers, though, instantly hit back when Lewis Vaughan ran at the home defence and, unchallenged, hit a thumping drive that gave home keeper Ross Stewart no chance.
Nine minutes later the Kirkcaldy men took the lead when an expertly hit cross-field ball from Jason Thomson found Vaughan on the edge of the penalty area and he played it into the path of of Spence who slammed it home.
This rocked Saints and they were stunned again seven minutes later when Vaughan was again involved and he found Bobby Barr on the left hand side of the box and the captain sent in a curling drive past Smith.