Lafferty brace stuns Raith and puts Killie on course for run-in
NOT before time, a meaningful and menacing move from Kilmarnock with 10 matches to play.
Kyle Lafferty added his second brace in as many games to a Stephen McGinn opener to brush aside a team that can safely be described as a former title rival.
Kilmarnock are now eyeballing Arbroath, albeit having played one game more than the part-time Championship leaders.
Momentum is, at last, with a squad that has stuttered throughout in attempting to justify their hot pre-season favourites tag.
Unable to muster consecutive wins in the league since October, this victory followed up a come-frombehind success over Dunfermline and was their most impressive display against a top- half opponent all season.
It gave Derek McInnes licence to invite his players to meet a challenge. To prove they are the best in the league where it really matters — down the home straight.
‘I just said to the players that Arbroath have been the best team in the league to this moment,’ said McInnes. ‘Everyone else has been jostling to be that team and we’ve not been convincing enough in our work to do that.
‘But it’s important that we are the best team from here on in. That’s two in a row. It’s important we get three, four and five.
‘We have never really had the momentum. There’s no better time than now to go and do that.’
From the opening minutes, there was no danger of Raith repeating their win at Rugby Park in October.
John McGlynn’s men are now without a Championship victory in nine games, a sequence stretching back to December 11 and a defeat of Killie in Kirkcaldy.
Fraser Murray, a problem all afternoon for Rovers, won a corner and Chris Burke swung over a beauty for Lafferty. The veteran’s header cannoned off the crossbar and dropped kindly for McGinn.
Without a goal in 14 months, his reactions were razor sharp as he rifled past ex-Kilmarnock keeper Jamie MacDonald.
Murray assisted in both Lafferty’s strikes. For the first, he broke and resisted options in the area to wait for the striker to arrive. A wise move but an awful outcome for Murray’s former Hibs colleague Sean Mackie on his first loan start for Raith. Lafferty’s first-time shot spun wickedly off Mackie’s right boot to wrong-foot MacDonald.
Just after the hour, the Murray-Lafferty alliance added a third.
Murray guided a perfect ball into Lafferty, allowing him to bury his fifth league goal in five appearances into the bottom corner of the net.
Rovers boss McGlynn said: ‘The positive was the second-half performance, we did really well. But right now we have to roll our sleeves up, muck in and turn the corner.’