Caley Thistle skipper Carl Tremarco insists he never lost belief Inverness could return to the national stage despite their relegation from the top flight.
Inverness take on Hearts in Saturday’s Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden Park, four years after John Hughes’ side won the competition courtesy of a 2-1 victory over Falkirk.
With Caley Jags suffering relegation from the top flight within two years, this season’s cup run has come as a major boost for the Highlanders, who have defeated Edinburgh City, East Kilbride, Ross County and Dundee United to set up their last-four tie against the Jambos.
Englishman Tremarco, who was sent off in the final victory over the Bairns in 2015, says he always dared to dream of another Hampden outing.
The 33-year-old defender said: “I think you’ve always got a chance – especially up here. You’ve only got to win four or five games and you are back at Hampden. It’s a lot harder to progress in the FA Cup because there are a lot more teams.
“Premiership teams get a bye, so they just have to get through the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds before they are back at Hampden. With a kind draw you can be there.
“We have had a half-decent draw – we haven’t played a Premiership team which is quite lucky. We had a pretty easy run, with no disrespect, up until Ross County. We then had Dundee United. On the day we were superb and we should have won more than 2-1.
“Things have just seemed to fall into place and hopefully the stars align again for us this season. Hopefully we can share good memories again, because they don’t come around very often.”
Tremarco insists John Robertson’s men will approach their tie against the Jambos in bullish mood, but accepts they will require breaks to go their way against an Edinburgh side which has clocked up a fourth successive Premiership top-six finish.
Tremarco added: “There is nothing to stop us. Hearts beat Aberdeen a couple of weeks ago, but we probably would have preferred this draw if I’m being honest.
“We fancy our chances against Hearts, and Aberdeen or Celtic in a one-off game – you just never know. It just takes their goalkeeper to get sent off, for them to go down to 10 men and us to get a penalty.
“Anything can happen during the game. To win the whole thing you do need a bit of luck. “We got that bit of luck in the semi final against Celtic with Josh Meekings, which was a penalty as everyone saw.
“But I think we deserved it at the end of the day. Hopefully the bit of luck we need comes, but hopefully we save it for the final.”
