Dan: This win can set Lions up for season
DAN MACKAY hailed Livingston for refusing to wilt against Raith – but has warned their rare win cannot be a flash in the pan.
The winger sent Davie Martindale’s side into the last 16 with a late header that earned the Lions their first win in 14 games.
Amid a woeful run of form Livingston find themselves six points adrift at the Premiership basement.
But Mackay hopes the confidence-boosting success over Rovers can be the launchpad to get their campaign back on track.
He said: “It’s a sense of relief, it has been a long time coming, October was the last time we won.
“Saturday was a good chance to keep momentum going towards the league and the Scottish Cup can be that distraction.
“Hopefully we can kick on as a group and a club.
“Every game is huge now for us, we have had a really disappointing first half of the season, there is no doubt about that.
“But now we need to react, we’ve had time to reflect as a group and this is just the start of hopefully a good run.
“It can be a massive momentum shifter but we can’t just take it as one game, we need to carry on.”
Livingston have lost 11 of their last 13 league games and it appeared that the cup would offer no relief after Jack Hamilton deservedly gave Raith the lead after five minutes against his former club.
Even before then Raith passed up two good chances against a Livingston team that were at sixes and sevens.
Andrew Shinnie’s penalty miss in the 21st minute was in keeping with a team that are in free-fall.
But Livingston rallied to clinch a spot in the next round with Jamie Brandon and Mackay efforts either side of the break. And Mackay, who made his first appearances since November after being sidelined with a foot injury, was proud of the way Livi refused to throw in the towel.
He added: “It’s a massive sense of relief and probably what helped is that there were set backs in the game and we reacted really well.
“We know Raith have scored loads of late goals this season and had been on good form.
“We knew it would be hard but we had adversity in the game and we came through it and that is good for the group.
“We could easily have buckled or downed tools but we rallied on and I felt we were the better side in the second half. We just need to carry this on now.”
It was a day of mixed emotions for striker Hamilton on his return to the Tony Macaroni Arena - six months after leaving the Lions.
He opened the scoring but was ultimately left disappointed that Ian Murray’s men failed to progress.
He said: “I was trying as hard as I could for the team. I’ll do that, no matter what.
“But it was nice to get a goal against a former club.
“I was definitely raring to go from the start.
“But we’re obviously disappointed we didn’t get through to the next round of the cup.
“I thought we were good all over and hopefully we can be in the Premiership next season.”
Livingston won the game without Joel Nouble after Martindale omitted the striker amid a bid from English League One side Exeter City.