Caley Thistle head coach Billy Dodds hailed his ‘unbelievable’ players after they sunk table-topping Kilmarnock 2-1 to secure a play-off berth in the Championship.
Goals from Billy Mckay and Logan Chalmers more than cancelled out Ash Taylor’s opener as ICT confirmed they will be one of the play-off contenders.
Dodds praised his never-say-die players for turning around horrific winter form to make it five without loss to put the seal on a certain top-four finish.
The gutsy result means they go into the weekend six points behind Arbroath on the same number of games. Dick Campbell’s side host Queen of the South on Saturday with a chance to move to within one point of Killie.
He said: “After going on an 11-game run without a win and your next games are Arbroath, Raith Rovers and Dunfermline, you think ‘wow’, we will need to do well.
“Even on our bad run, we were always competitive. We never lost by more than a goal. Even in drawn games, we were still at it until the death.
“Since that bad run, the boys have knuckled down and been unbelievable. They have rolled the sleeves up and got it going the other way. It’s not just about the boys who start and score goals. It’s about the boys who come on.
“Logan Chalmers was a sub when he changed it at Raith and Austin Samuels came on and scored against Dunfermline. David Carson and Aaron Doran tonight did the same. Aaron kept the ball, which we hadn’t done.
“I am so proud and delighted.”
Only one winner after ICT leveller
And Dodds was drained, but elated after his team dug deep to post their third win over the leaders.
He added: “I’m emotionally tired because you kick every ball down there.
“My subs were brilliant when they came on. They showed character, desire, determination to go and turn the game around.
“Once we got our equaliser, we were by far the better team. We could have nicked a couple more.
“To do that, you can either give up or go at it, and we went at it.”
Killie will prepare for Arbroath clash
Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes, meanwhile, was gutted his players fell short and said it all points towards next Friday’s crunch showdown against Arbroath.
He said: “We knew it would be tough. Inverness have shown a bit of form and are where they are in the league for a reason.
“We had no divine right to come here and win.
“We needed a better 90-minute performance from us to win and unfortunately, it wasn’t there.
“But when we first came into the club, we had a meeting with the players and spoke about working towards that last home game of the season and chalking up enough points to try and take it to the home game against Arbroath to win the league.
“That’s where we are and, probably, that’s where we still would have been regardless of tonight’s result.
“I don’t want to underplay the disappointment of tonight’s result, because we are, but I’ve no time to dwell on it and none of my players or staff are going to dwell on it.
“Any fall-out from today’s game has to be moved away pretty quickly to focus on what could be a fantastic opportunity for us to win a league in front of our own supporters.”
Two away trips lie in store now for ICT, with Tuesday clash at basement side Queen of the South preceding next weekend’s clash with Dougie Imrie’s Morton at Cappielow.
