Ginger Jaggy has printed his thoughts for this weekend’s clash of the coupon busters at Easter Road. Two teams capable of playing entertaining football on a good day, but also capable of pressing the self destruct button on a bad day go head to head in the Capital as three SPL points are at stake. This is the first of a Capital club double as ICT take on Hearts next week in Inverness. Often a happy hunting ground for Inverness, boss Butcher will be looking to get back on track after the lifeless performance against Hamilton Academical, although Captain Richie Foran will miss out.

Hibernian Preview On Saturday we will be making our first trip to the capital to face Hibs at Easter Road. Caley Thistle’s return to the SPL has not been easy with the first five games seeing us face Celtic, Dundee United, Hibs and Hearts with Hamilton seen as the easiest game to pick up some points. But the rollercoaster has already started and fans of Caley Thistle have seen a couple of unexpected twists. The first game saw a brave performance put up but it was in vain as Celtic kicked off their title aspirations with a superb Paddy McCourt solo effort. But the first twist was a sensational 4-0 victory at Tannadice courtesy of two cracking strikes, from Kevin McCann and prolific goal scorer Russell Duncan (ok maybe not but it was a cracker). Adam Rooney scored twice to open his SPL account with again another decent finish from the edge of the box and then converting a penalty late on. The fans were on a high, but an old friend/foe (delete as appropriate) in Dougie Imrie popped up without a minute gone to seal Hamilton’s first victory of the season. Fans were disappointed after the fantastic result the week before but three points is not too bad as long as we had some points on the board coming into this mini break for the internationals.

Our opponents have also had an up and down start to the season. Hibernian shot out of the traps last season and at one stage were in title contention but faded away badly as the season drew to a close. Hibs did get into the Europa league play offs but suffered defeat straight away as they crashed out tamely to the Slovenian club NK Maribor losing both legs. When they kicked off their domestic season they got off to a great start winning 3-2 at Motherwell with Stokes, Hanlon and Miller on the score sheet. Thereafter though, their season has gone from bad to worse with defeats and the loss of star striker Anthony Stokes to Celtic on transfer deadline day. The first defeat for Hibs was shaping up to be a decent performance before Kenny Miller scored a hat trick to give defending champions Rangers a comfortable 3-0 victory. They were also beaten 1-0 at relegation candidates St Mirren in Paisley which would have annoyed the Easter road faithful.

So it is all to play for as both sides have 3 points and look to kick on up the table in the coming months. Caley Thistle has a great record against Hibs with Inverness winning 8 games out of 15 and Hibs winning just 5 with 2 draws. That record is helped by the fact that Hibernian have never won in the Highlands and with our last match ending 2-1 to us at Easter Road the vociferous away day fans will be hoping for the same.

Inverness team news for this match sees Terry Butcher regain Chris Innes and Dani Sanchez to the squad.  Caley Thistle have also acquired the services of Stewart Duff again, after his loan spell last season as he is a free agent and could be signed outside the window.  He goes straight into the squad for Saturday. On the three injured players, Foran and Blumenshtein are running again but won’t be in action for a few weeks while Kevin McCann could return for the Hearts game next week although he is ineligible against his parent club for the visit to Easter Road.

  Hibs will be playing a bounce match to give their three new signings Darryl Duffy, Jonathon Grounds and Francis Dickoh a bit of match sharpness before Saturday. They also welcome back Kevin McBride who served a one match ban after his red card against Rangers. John Hughes also hopes to have Graeme Stack back after a back problem has kept him out of the last two matches and look for Michael Hart to be ready to face us on Saturday after hamstring trouble, also against Rangers.  A familiar face in goals for Hibernian is that of our very own Mark Brown.  John Rankin might also feature.  One man to keep a close eye on will be Colin Nish who seems to have a habit of scoring against ICT.

Last  line up for Hibernian- Brown, Stokes, Wotherspoon, Nish, Miller, Hogg, De Graaf, Hanlon (60), Bamba, Thicot (70), Riordan (71) – Smith, Stevenson, Stephens, Currie, Galbraith (60), Rankin (70), Murray (71)

The game will be tough as Hibs can be a good side on their day, but I think we can get a positive result out of it either by the odd goal or claiming what I would see as a creditable draw. Hibs can match the best when on form, and will be looking to bounce back from a surprise defeat to St Mirren but so will ICT from the disappointing home result to Hamilton, so it is shaping up to be a cracker.

GingerJaggies prediction 1-1

***Breaking News***No pun intended***

Word on the street is that Darryl Duffy has broken a bone in his foot and will miss this game.