Dunfermline's Chris Hamilton played with broken cheekbone

It was a painful experience in more ways than one for Chris Hamilton who fractured his cheekbone at Arbroath but opted to wear the protective headgear against Rovers instead of going for surgery.

He said: "I spoke to a specialist on Sunday and he was happy for me to play with the mask on with little risk involved, so it was good. I was happy to do it.

"It's hard. Obviously it's a wee bit different as you lose some vision but it's not too bad. I've only trained with it once, after I got the all-clear, so it just takes a wee while to get used to it but it'll be alright.

Dunfermline's Chris Hamilton played against Raith with a mask to protect his fractured cheekbone. (Image: Craig Brown.)

"It's a fractured cheekbone. I had the option (of surgery) as I've got a small dent on the side of my face so it would be to put it back into place but I think I'm just going to go without it and just keep playing."

Two goals from set pieces by Raith defender Dan O'Reilly "killed" the Pars in the 2-1 defeat and Hamilton admitted: "The goals we lost were poor, we know that.

"We need to defend our box much better.

"On the flip side we need to be better in the other box, try and get on the end of things and work to get that wee bit of luck we're just not getting right now.

"Overall I thought we played well in the game, in between the boxes we dominated most of the game, but if you don't defend your box then you're going to struggle."

"When two set pieces kill you it hurts even more because we work on that and are big on that.

"So something is not quite right and we need to keep working hard on the training pitch to rectify that as it's letting us down."

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"We are disappointed. The last time we played them we were very poor, today I thought we played well and gave the crowd something to get behind, and we felt that. 

"But we need to get back to defending our box much better than what we are."

As well as losing the match, the fourth defeat in a row to Rovers, he was also involved in the accidental clash that saw his defensive partner Sam Fisher taken to hospital with concussion and "loads of blood" pouring from a nasty facial wound.

Asked post match how Fisher was he replied: "I'm not sure. I've not seen him since or spoken to the doctor but there was loads of blood.

"It didn't look great but I don't know what the diagnosis is or what actually happened.

"My stud caught him, I think it's maybe caught him on the nose, so it looks a sore one.

"I'm gutted for him, it's frustrating but hopefully it's not as bad as it looked. We'll wait and see."

Hamilton played in the middle of a back three with Fisher and Rhys Breen, who also departed injured in the second half with a knee problem.

After a spate of unfortunate injuries to Dunfermline's centre backs, fans could be forgiven for thinking they're cursed by bad luck.

Hamilton said: "I know. It's mental. I've never seen it in my career.

"It's strange injuries as well, my cheekbone, Sam's nose, Bene's (Kyle Benedictus) foot earlier on in the season, just things that are unavoidable and just happen and it seems to happen every few weeks just now.

"We can't use it as an excuse. We need to keep going. We've got bodies that can fill in and boys are doing that just now."

Hamilton was injured in the 1-1 draw at Arbroath and only missed one match, the 2-2 draw at Ayr, before returning to the side.

"Yeah, I feared it could have been a wee while but with injuries like this it's so hard to find anything online or in papers, you really need to speak to a specialist who deals with sports people.

"Once I spoke to him and got the all clear I was delighted."

Pars don't have much time to reflect on the loss to Raith with a match live on TV against Queen's Park, at Hampden, kicking off tomorrow (Friday) night.

He said: "That's what you want after a wee bit of disappointment, to get back on the pitch and put things right as quickly as possible.

"So we'll try and get a squad and a team together to go there and try and pick up three points."