Raith Rovers v Clyde

Recap

It’s not often a player scoring a hat trick does not end up on the winning side, but it proved that way at Kirkcaldy yesterday when an Ian Harty hat-trick proved only enough for Clyde to take a share of the spoils against Raith Rovers.

The pitch may have been heavy, Clyde may have had Tuesday night’s game against Ross County on their minds, or they may have felt hard done by with some of referee Colin Hardie’s decisions, but the long and the short of it was Raith fought hard for every ball and Clyde still looked a bit rusty.

The home side started the stronger and Bryn Halliwell proved his worth with a couple of early saves from veteran striker Scott Crabbe and Connall Murtagh, with an Ian Harty lob which was well held by Bertholet sandwiched in between.

Just after the quarter-hour mark it came as no real surprise when Raith took the lead when Tulloch got his head on the end of an Crabbe cross and beat the defence and the keeper to head home. Uncharacteristically the Clyde defence looked to have gone to sleep as they lost their first goal in six games.

The referee then had the visiting fans in uproar when first he failed to spot Harty being held back in the box, then two minutes later he also enraged the entire Clyde side and bench when Potter and Smart chased a loose ball which Potter just got to first but the Raith man’s two footed lunge was high and late and Potter was fortunate he was able to continue after five minutes of treatment.

Following the ensuing melee Hardie then only booked Smart for the dangerous tackle as well as Sheridan and Bolan for going to their captain’s aid.

Simon Mensing was next to try his luck but his header from the inside the box was too tame to trouble the Raith keeper. Mensing did play his part in Clyde’s equaliser when he and Burns kept possession on the right wing, before releasing Harty who curled a wonderful shot past Berthelot.

Into the second half and Clyde were awarded a penalty when following a goalmouth scramble Bertholet brought Harty down from behind and the striker stepped up to coolly send the keeper the wrong way, but moments later he denied Harty his hat trick with a good diving save as Clyde looked for the winner.

However, it was Raith who grabbed an equaliser when yet again poor Clyde defending from a set piece saw Pat Clarke glance home a header from a Crabbe corner. It really was a soft goal to lose and with news coming from Falkirk that the leaders were still being held it was the last thing Clyde needed.

Only a minute later Hardie awarded another penalty when Harty was sandwiched between two players and Clyde’s top scorer again stepped up to hammer home the spot kick.

The last time the sides met in Kirkcaldy it was a 3-2 away win and the question was could Clyde hold out for the same result? Unfortunately the answer was to prove to be a resounding "no" as Pat Clarke grabbed his second when poor defending yet again saw him collect the ball and strike a shot past Halliwell for the equaliser.

Clyde will be ruing a couple of missed chances but in honesty the defending yesterday was very poor with the rearguard looking out of sorts particularly at the first two goals yesterday as they failed to deal with cross balls into the box.

Billy Reid will know that this sort of defending on Tuesday will make it very difficult to progress through to face Celtic and it would be no surprise, assuming he is fit, if Balmer was brought in at the expense of Scott Wilson who had his poorest game in a Clyde jersey. The biggest disappointment however was that with Falkirk dropping home points to Hamilton no ground was made up on the leaders.