MORTON manager James Grady mixed honesty with optimism in assessing his side's first draw of the season.

Grady was spot on when he conceded Raith were the better side after Donovan Simmonds, left, had notched his first Ton goal to cancel out Grant Murray's opener.

But the Cappielow leader was equally justified in being bullish about his team's recent results.

There was no denying that this was a frustrating night for the Ton faithful, as they saw their team come a poor second almost throughout the ninety minutes.

Grady admitted: "On the back of two wins, I was thinking we would come out a bit more confident than we did.

"But fair play to Raith, because they outplayed us. We couldn't get to grips in the middle of the park and we were fortunate to still be in it at half-time." It was an ominous sign of things to come when Raith's Darren Smith saw his crisp left-foot shot deflected for a corner in the opening exchanges.

Raith went even closer in nine minutes when Allan Walker seized on a slack pass by Ryan McGuffie and saw his pointblank shot brilliantly blocked by Kevin Cuthbert.

However, the rebound fell for Smith who looked certain to score until Kevin McKinlay produced a remarkable goal-line clearance which had Raith screaming for a penalty.

The Kirkcaldy side continued to look threatening but they were almost caught out by Morton's first genuine attack.

Peter Weatherson released Steve Masterton on the right and his driven cross drew a crucial interception from Thierry Gathuessi to deny Jim McAlister.

Raith had another escape when Masterton's dipping free kick from the left edge of the box went inches over.

A fierce Mark Ferry shot then took the wind out of Dominic Shimmin, while Williamson's rising twenty yard effort was just too high.

The pattern was similar on the restart as Raith continued to show much more hunger for the task.

Cuthbert contrived to spill Robert Sloan's flighted free kick but the keeper's blushes were spared by Masterton.

Rovers found the breakthrough in 72 minutes when Walker's deep corner was headed down by Ferry for Murray to hook home.

The Ton might have equalised through Shimmin's close-range header, which David McGurn saved.

However, persistence paid off when Simmonds got behind the home defence to convert from close range after Allan Jenkins had lobbed the ball into the box.

Grady, shrugging off a disappointing display, looked at the bigger picture.

He said: "When you play as poorly as we did tonight I think it is a point gained and I always look for the positives.

"The boys had to dig deep, especially when they went behind, but to get the goal back shows you there is fight there as well as determination and character.

"The positive is that we've taken seven points out of the last nine which is fantastic and we've moved up a place." Raith boss John McGlynn said: "Maybe we should have had a penalty when the boy cleared it off the line. Our players thought he handled it.

"The referee had a big decision to make because the boy would have been sent off and we would have had a penalty. It was another big decision which went against us.

"But I was delighted with some of the football we played especially in the first half."