Caley Thistle head coach Billy Dodds is backing his men to rise to the challenge in the Championship after two successive wins breathed fresh life into their promotion push.
A three-month spell without a victory ended two weeks ago in some style when they swept to a 3-0 home win against genuine title contenders Arbroath, who now trail Kilmarnock by two points with six games to go.
The Inverness team followed that impressive display by scoring a sensational last-gasp 3-2 win at Raith Rovers on Saturday to haul them four points clear of their hosts and kept them within the play-off zone.
This is football
Absolute scenes 😍 pic.twitter.com/rjULpnIYsR
— Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC (@ICTFC) March 19, 2022
With two minutes left, against 10-man Raith, it seemed as if ICT were heading for their first league loss against Rovers since 2000.
However, on-loan Dundee United forward, substitute Logan Chalmers guided home two late goals to seal an unlikely Stark’s Park win.
Dodds hopes side are ‘spurred on’
Dodds, who admits the manner of the victory was ‘special’, feels the way his team have never been outclassed, even in their barren spell, gives him hope they can secure a play-off position.
He said: “We have to ensure we are spurred on by Saturday’s win and do things properly. We have to ensure we win big games to make sure we’re in those play-offs.
“We’re capable against most teams in this league when we’re at it.
“We had a great run at the start of the season, then a wee spurt in the middle when we won three on the trot, then we had our bad spell.
“As I always said, it wasn’t 11 straight defeats. We got some points within that which could be important. Now, we’ve won two on the bounce.
“We take confidence, but we have to play better than we did in the second half on Saturday. We appreciate that.
“No one will take away the dogged determination from this team. That’s what it took at the weekend.
“Nobody has beaten us by a goal all season, so we’ve been competitive every time and maybe chucked away a few points. We got our rub of the green on Saturday and these boys found a way.”
Three-way fight for play-off places
With six fixtures of the regular season remaining, it’s clear the fight for the title is between Derek McInnes’ Killie and Dick Campbell’s part-time stars Arbroath.
However, there’s little between Partick, Inverness and Raith for two of the three play-off berths and Dodds is not ruling anything out in these closing weeks.
He added: “It’s a big turnaround. It’s a big time in the season. There is still plenty of football to go.
“There is still a long way to go and Raith are not out of it either. They were great, even with 10 men when they worked their socks off.”
