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Anton Dowds penalty helps Raith Rovers to first win of new football season away to Queen’s Park Raith Rovers notched up their first win of the new William Hill Championship football season at the second time of asking away to Queen’s Park on Saturday, edging out their hosts 2-1. Charlie Telfer put manager Dougie Imrie’s Fifers ahead on 39 minutes in front of a crowd of 866 at Glasgow’s City Stadium and his former Falkirk teammate Anton Dowds doubled their advantage just ahead of the hour mark, with Ross McLean getting one back for Sean Crighton’s home side on 77 minutes with his first senior goal. Telfer’s goal was a shot from the middle of the box to the bottom-right corner of the net and Dowds’ was from a penalty awarded by referee Jamie Wilkie for a handball by Ricki Lamie. Though Rovers, captained by Paul Hanlon, enjoyed 63% of possession, they only managed the same number of shots on target as their opponents – four – but that was enough to get the job done as two of them made it past home goalkeeper Jack Wills and only one evaded visiting No 1 Josh Rae at the other end of the pitch. That result against a starting XI featuring former Rovers Euan Murray, Aidan Connolly, Callum Smith and Jack Hamilton, following a 1-1 draw hosting new boys Stenhousemuir seven days earlier, lifts Raith up to fourth place in the table as one of three teams on four points from two fixtures ahead of a visit from one of the others, joint-second-placed Ayr United, held to a 1-1 draw away to Dunfermline Athletic at the weekend, on Saturday, August 22, with kick-off at Kirkcaldy’s Stark’s Park at 3pm. “Getting that first early win away from home will settle everybody down,” Imrie told Raith TV afterwards. “For large parts of the game, we were very good. We controlled a lot of it. “The main thing was to come and get three points and we’ve done that. “I was really pleased to see Charlie get a goal, I was really pleased to see Anton get a goal – that’ll give them confidence. “There was a lot to like. For 70-odd minutes, we were excellent. We could have had a couple more goals. “I thought our shape was excellent. I thought we cut through them really well. There weren’t a lot of disappointments. “The pleasing thing is that we came here and got what I wanted – three points. “I’m really pleased with our overall performance. “Don’t get me wrong, obviously we’d have liked to have picked up three points last week at home against Stenny, but to pick up four out of a possible six in our first two games is a good start.” One of Imrie’s few disappointments was seeing midfielder Arron Lyall go off injured eight minutes in, with new loan signing Calum Adamson replacing him. “It was disappointing to see Arron picking up a hamstring injury, but I thought Calum showed the reason why I wanted to bring him to the club, and that’ll give him a confidence boost as well, getting in so early and playing so well,” said the 43-year-old. Raith host Ayr later this month hoping for back-to-back wins after getting the better of them by 3-0 in their last meeting in March, also at home, thanks to goals from Innes Cameron at the double and Richard Chin.