Midfielder Ross Draper reckons Caley Thistle are ahead of schedule as they prepare for the start of the Scottish Premiership season.
The midfielder played the full 90 minutes of the 2-1 win at Elgin City on Saturday, and believes manager John Hughes has his players on course to be more than ready to travel to newly-promoted Hamilton on August 9.
Draper said: “I think we’re on course, if not ahead of schedule. Our coach Scott Kellacher was saying in the warm-up he felt we were knocking the ball around as if we’re really close to the start of the season, even though we’ve only been in a couple of weeks.
“There have been promising signs from all the players. Everyone is buzzing to be back and looking forward to a new season. We need to work hard, get our heads down in the next couple of weeks and look forward to the first game.”
The 25 year-old former Macclesfield Town player felt League 2 Elgin represented a sterner test than Inverness had faced in their previous pre-season matches, and praised the resilience of his team-mates to rally from the loss of an early goal to win the game.
“We knew, with all due respect to Clach and Forres, this would be a step up. Elgin is a good club and we know Matthew Cooper and Shane Sutherland, so we knew they’ve got some really good players.
“We’re building and have games against Birmingham City and Fleetwood Town to come. These will be different games, they’re going to be in our faces and we’ll need to be on our toes.”