Thursday, March 28, 2024
SportScottish ChampionshipGary Locke admits Raith Rovers must find way to 'stop the rot'...

Gary Locke admits Raith Rovers must find way to ‘stop the rot’ with much-needed win against Morton

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GARY Locke has urged Raith Rovers to ‘stop the rot’ against Morton after suffering a worrying fifth straight league defeat at the weekend.

The Stark’s Park men are now without a win since October – a dire run stretching back 13 games.

It is a concerning sequence that has left them sitting in eighth, just four points above Ayr United, as they prepare to host Morton on Tuesday night.

The Kirkcaldy outfit had their sights firmly set on a promotion play-off place earlier in the campaign but are aware they desperately need a victory to ease thoughts of a relegation battle.

Locke, who will be without Kevin Cuthbert after the keeper picked up an abdominal injury at the weekend, told @CCP_sport: “We’ve got to dig in because we need to go and get a couple of results.

“As much as there’s not much in the league table, and if we win we go back up to sixth, the longer the run goes the harder it’s going to be for us.

“We’ve got to make sure we rally together and hopefully we can get three points against Morton.

“The fans are disappointed, and rightly so, but we’re equally as disappointed.

“If you look at the quality throughout the squad, if someone had said we were going to as long without a victory and suffer five defeats in a row I would have said ‘no chance’.

“But it’s happened and we need to make sure we go that extra yard for one another to stop the rot.”

CHANGES

Saturday’s 3-0 defeat against Dundee United followed a dispiriting 3-1 home defeat to Dumbarton, just days after Rovers pushed Hearts all the way to extra-time in their Scottish Cup replay at Tynecastle.

And Locke has confessed he is considering shaking up his team selection in a bid to spark a revival.

He added: “All that matters is we get back to winning ways. How we do that I’m not bothered. I’ll take a bad performance and a scrappy 1-0 win at the minute.

“In a lot of games I have felt we haven’t played that badly but it’s all about getting results and we have to make sure we start picking up a couple.

“We’ve got to make changes because, at the end of the day, there’s a few lads who have had a really good chance.

“And, for one reason or another, it’s not quite happening. So, we have to try to freshen things up.

“It’s another game in a short space of time, so we need to make changes and hopefully the guys that go in get their sleeves rolled up and dig out the win we need.”

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