Play-Off Final 1st Leg

Having scraped into the play-off final, we find our route to Championship survival blocked by a two leg play-off encounter against a team we often struggled against, Hamilton Accies, one of lifes great relegation dodgers. They did eventually make the drop into League 1 a season ago but will fancy their chances against a struggling Caley Jags. They seemed to hold the Indian sign over us in season 2022/2023 with four wins out of five encounters, albeit one was a Challenge Cup game at NDP when we fielded a team of youths and Mark Ridgers during one of our worst peroids for injuries. We did win at NDP towards the end of that season with Billy Mckay scoring three minutes from the end. Overall, the stats are even, Accies one game to the good out of 31 meetings.

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Match/Ticket Info

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Accies Access: Admission: Adults £20, -18 & +65 £10. Accies season ticket holders 1/2 price on production of their cards at the gate. Cash only at turnstiles. Card payments at shop

He Scores When He Wants:  2 - 1 A long trip on a Tuesday night to face your bogey team is not ideal, especially when it gets to the business end of the season. That's what faced the Caley Jags as we looked to win our sixth game on the bounce against struggling Hamilton Accies who have already beaten us four times this season. Inverness could go third, but Accies would be hoping to put some distance between themselves and bottom side Cove Rangers. As it turned out it remained goalless at the interval with Deas seeing a header saved by Fulton just before the break. Connor Smith scored direct from a free kick after the interval but Nathan Shaw equalised three minutes later. Billy Mckay won all three points with a poachers goal in off the post with three minutes left and that's how it ended. Phew!

2 - 1 (A)

1 - 2 (A)

0 - 3 (H)

0 - 2 (A)

0 - 1 (H)

4 - 0 (H)

1 - 1 (A)

1 - 2 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

2 - 1 (H)

How did we get into this mess

Our demise has been well documented this season in the Championship where we got off to a poor start before relieving Billy Dodds of his duties after winning 1 point in our first six games. In comes our saviour, Big Dunc. However all is not well and we just kept our heads above water thanks to Arbroath being rubbish. Onto the play offs and an insipid performance at Links Park left us all wondering if our time has come to drop into oblivion. Our performance certainly would not look out of place in the lower leagues. We clung on for a 0-0 draw away from home and scraped a 1-0 win at Inverness with Billy Mckay saving our blushes with his 112th goal for the club and most important to date. Everything about the club has negative undertones at the moment.

Well travelled and long suffering Caley Jags fan Gringo said:  "That was my first game of the season and my first chance to see with my own eyes how gash ICT have become. That was one awful unentertaining game and by far the worst I've seen from the team I support. No passion, no urgency, no desire, no creativity...nothing. Square balls across the back line time after time. Can't keep possession. Can't shoot. Two game against a part time outfit and we can only bag one goal. There needs to be drastic improvement against Hamilton and I fully believe Dunc is incapable of doing that with this bunch of players. Hamilton will be a tough hurdle to overcome and I fear the worse". 

John Rankin's Hamilton Accies on the other hand are rightly in a positive mood after an excellent season in League 1 finishing second to all conquering Falkirk and conceding the same amount goals as the Champions. Hamilton's stats for their League campaign with (ict in brackets). Won 22 (10) Drawn 8 (12) Lost 6 (14) Goals for 73 (41), Goals against 28 (40) 

Top Scorers

1. Kevin O'Hara 16
2. Euan Henderson 10
3. Ahkeem Rose 7
4. Lewis Smith 5 (Lewis also tops the assist chart with 11)
5. Kyle MacDonald 5
6. Reghan Tumilty 5

ICT loan player Jake Davidson has also bagged a couple of goals for Accies but will be ineligible to play.

Hamilton did face Championship opposition in the Challenge Cup, losing 4-1 to Raith Rovers. That game was nicely poised at 0-1 until Lee Kilday was red carded after 54 minutes. Raith capitalised and scored a further three goals with Zanatta netting for Accies. Let's not forget, Accies also have an artificial surface which is something Ferguson bleated about after the Montrose game at Links Park.

Accies team v Alloa: Lyness; Longridge, Kilday (Owens 68 ), Barjonas (Rose 68 ), Henderson (Hastie 78 ), Martin (Murray 84), O’Hara, L. Smith, McGowan, Tumilty, Williamson (Davidson 45).

Subs Not Used: J. Smith; Redfern, Winter, Hendrie.

Inverness latest Team News

Here's Dunc's briefing: Sean McAllister out with recurring injury. Sounds as though the rest will be as you were and Charlie Gilmour is hopefully fit to play some part. Don't look for any drastic changes.