Caley Thistle midfielder Ross Draper refused to be disheartened by his side’s unbeaten streak coming to an end in their 1-0 loss against Rangers on Friday.
The result halted Inverness’ fine recent form of five successive matches without defeat, resulting in manager Richie Foran being named September’s manager of the month.
The sequence included draws against Celtic and Aberdeen and a victory against St Johnstone but, despite the failure to add Rangers to the list, Draper does not feel Caley Jags’ success will be determined by how they fare against the teams at the top of the league.
Inverness return against Kilmarnock at home on Saturday and Draper said: “We were disappointed with the result but we played some good stuff against Rangers.
“We didn’t want to break our unbeaten run of five games but it’s about the bigger picture.
“Games against Celtic and Rangers are a bonus and what we get from them is an extra. It’s the long haul of playing the teams around us week in, week out.”
Although Caley Jags were beaten by the Ibrox club, Draper was pleased with many parts of the Highlanders’ performance, claiming a similar display would have been enough to defeat most other sides in the Premiership.
The 27-year-old added: “We certainly take the positives out of it because we gave it a right good go.
“On another day we might have nicked a goal. We had a couple of shots, headers and might have nicked something as we did in the draw against Celtic.
“The manager said it was probably our best performance in six games even though we got results from the other five.
“Rangers are good, full of good footballers. That’s why we tried to press high and not give them much time on the ball.
“If they are given time on the ball then their midfield three of Nico Kranjcar, Jason Holt and Andrew Halliday can tear teams apart.
“It was important to try to press high but sometimes they got out. That’s the risk we took.
“We had to take the positives and against a lesser team we would have come out on top.”
