CRIME writer Val McDermid sponsors Raith Rovers, her home-town team, but it was eye-catching goals from Greg Stewart, Paul McGinn, Peter MacDonald and Martin Boyle whodunnit for Dundee and left the Fifers as victims in this League Cup second-round tie with Grant Murray, their manager, accepting that his side had, indeed, been murdered.
The home side made six changes from the side that beat St Mirren in Paisley at the weekend while Raith, still reeling from their 4-0 home defeat to Hearts on Saturday, offered starts to Kevin Moon and Lewis Vaughan. Their line-up also featured Ryan Conroy and Christian Nade whose last appearances at Dens Park came last May when they helped the Dark Blues to the Championship title.
They were as shocked as their current team-mates, however, when Greg Stewart gave Dundee a third-minute opener with a header from Phil Roberts's corner kick.
The visitors were prevented from equalising moments later as Scott Bain, the home side's stand-in goalkeeper, produced an acrobatic save from Conroy's 25-yard free-kick.
Dundee's passing game was admirable and in Roberts they had a winger with pace and crossing that was incisive and dangerous while Stewart's threat from midfield was evident on several occasions.
Two minutes before the break it was Paul McGinn who impressed, meandering with the ball, almost, before firing home a breathtaking strike from 25 yards.
Raith's hopes were swept away after an hour when Peter MacDonald finished a well-worked manoeuvre, aided by Martin Boyle, who also found the target ten minutes later.
Kevin Cuthbert did some sterling work with a series of save to prevent further embarrassment to Ms McDermid and her fellow Raith disciples.
There was no twist in this story and the only mystery was how Dundee's Iain Davidson managed to reach Mark Stewart's shot and clear it off the line as the Dark Blues kept another clean sheet.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article