AYR United boss Scott Brown says that his players aiming for perfection may prove costly.

The Somerset Park side missed out at home to title challengers Raith Rovers this weekend.

The Honest Men succumbed to a 2-1 defeat against Ian Murray's side, with Brown's former Hibernian teammate getting the better of his Ayr adversary.

A top performance was always going to be required by Ayr, who got off to a far from ideal start when Zak Rudden gave the visitors the lead after only four minutes.

But United hit back only minutes later, with Roy Syla converting after a scramble in the six-yard box to draw the home side level.

Lewis Vaughan then notched in first half stoppage time to put Rovers back ahead, with no further scoring in the second half thanks in part to some heroic goalkeeping from Raith's Kevin Dabrowski.

“The performance wasn’t too bad," Brown told Ayr United TV following the match.

"I thought, especially second half, we managed to lock them in – they’ve not had a lot of chances, they’ve not had a lot of possession second half.

“For us, we looked the better team, we looked like we were going to score. It’s fine details that we can’t manage to get the ball across the line.

“The goalie made a couple of good saves. We just didn’t ask enough questions today by putting the ball in the box at the right time."

Brown also commented that perhaps a change of tack is needed from his side if they are to break teams down more often.

He told Ayr United TV: “We had opportunities and we always want to score the perfect goal but sometimes when the pitch is a little bit bobbly you can’t always score that goal.

“Anton (Dowds) is a fantastic focal point – you can play off him, you can play into his feet – we need to link that play up a little better as well.

“I thought we were always in the game, that’s one good thing about us. We did create chances and second half we looked like we weren’t ever going to concede which was really good.

“At the same time, we need to work the goalie a little bit more and put the ball in the back of the net."

There is no let-up for Ayr now, as they prepare to host third-top Partick Thistle on Tuesday, February 27 - with the Jags also looking to bounce back from a defeat of their own after losing 3-1 to Dunfermline on Friday night.

Ahead of the match, Brown says the focus will move to keeping goals out - having conceded two goals in each of their last four matches.

He told Ayr United TV: "We need to stop leaking goals – that’s four games in a row that we’ve conceded two goals.

“We’re a little bit disappointed with that. That’s not just defending, I feel sorry for the defenders today because I thought they defended really well.

“It goes from front to back. We’re a team here we all take responsibility.”