Robbie Deas wishes he could have helped Inverness Caley Thistle back to the Premiership after confirming the Scottish Cup final will be his last game for the club.
The defender’s three-year stint in the Highland capital will come to an end when his contract expires.
Deas says he would like to stay at Caley Thistle, but a desire to play at a higher level is his reason for moving on.
During the 23-year-old’s time at the Caley Jags, they almost made it back to the top flight but lost to St Johnstone in last season’s play-off final.
This season in the Championship they were hampered by injuries – including Deas who was out from October to February with a broken leg – and finished sixth, but enjoyed a memorable run to the Scottish Cup final before losing 3-1 to Celtic on Saturday.
Addressing his future, Deas said: “I’m going to be moving on, I wanted to be moving on with Inverness and playing at the highest level possible.
“Games like Saturday are the games you want to be involved in.
“I’ve loved Inverness so much and I wish I could continue my journey with them, but I’ve decided to move on.
“I can’t say too much more about it just now, but I’ll enjoy my summer holidays and go again next season.
“I’ve fallen in love with Inverness but I want to playing at the highest level possible. I wish it was with Inverness, we’ve fallen short and I’m disappointed with that but I’ve got great memories.
“The amount of games I’ve played is exactly what I wanted when I joined.
“I also wanted to get the club back to the Premiership and unfortunately we’ve fallen short with that.
“In the last two seasons we’ve been 45 minutes away from Premiership football and then reaching a Scottish Cup final, if you’d said that would happen when I signed I might have struggled to believe it.”
Tough against treble winners
Deas would have loved to sign off at Caley Thistle by winning the Scottish Cup, but they were unable to upset Celtic.
The former Hoops youth player added: “It’s difficult against a team of that calibre – they’re treble winners for a reason.
“We kept them as quiet as we could, the goals we lost I think we could have done better with.
“We had them shaking for five minutes after we scored and it was a good day out for the fans.
“I’m delighted we managed to get here to give something back to the fans. I’m disappointed to walk away with nothing but against a team of that calibre it’s difficult.
“You don’t go into any game without believing you can win and we all had that in us.
“When we got the goal we had a glimmer of hope but fatigue maybe kicked in towards the end and we couldn’t quite get the goal to equalise and force extra-time.”
