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Comedy of Errors Inverness once more failed to take advantage of the given situation by producing another abject display at home against a club staring at relegation. This time it was Queen of the South that showed up our lack of quality and Lee Connelly scored the opener in the first half with Willie Collum waiving away appeals for offside. Same old same old from Inverness in a dire first half. We looked to have got out of jail when the Queens defenders made a hash of clearing a long kick out from Mark Ridgers and Billy Mckay accepted the comical defending to prod the ball home. If ever a man needed a goal it was Tom Walsh who has been totally ineffective this season, but score he did after being sent into the box by Mckay before drilling the ball behind Josh Rae. Phew we all thought, thank feck for that! Alas we shot ourselves in the foot, or more accurately David Carson shot us in the foot as he teed up substitute Ally Roy who had only been on the park for one minute. Surprisingly we actually jumped back into second place thanks to other results, but it's a complete mystery how we have done this given the dross we are subject to at the moment. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As expected, Aaron Doran once again missed out. Also missing was Scott Allardice who they kept quiet about and Cameron Harper. Still waiting for confirmation that Allardice's injury is season ending or just a rumour, but he is not included today. That left us with only six on the bench, two of those being youth players. Queens made three changes from their last outing with Shea Gordon making his debut for the 'Doonhamers' and Willie Gibson returning after injury. Another flat calm afternoon with a covid restricted crowd in attendance saw the hosts set the ball rolling attacking the South Stand end. I'll let RIG tell the story. I know I know, you've all read it before, but this is how it is I'm afraid. That was grim. After a decent opening 15 - 20 minutes from Queens, during which they probably should have scored at least once, we started to get on top and looked like ending the first half the stronger side. Queens main attacking plan seemed to be trying to slide the ball in behind our CBs for Connelly to latch on to and we got a glimpse of this when Paton (I think) burst through and looked set to round Ridgers but fortunately a well timed challenge snuffed out this threat. Deas had a couple of decent chances which fell to him at the left edge of the box but your CB filling in at left back probably doesn't have the greatest shooting boots in the world and it showed as he snatched at both efforts. Walsh had a good chance to score as well but I think he tried to be too cute and attempted to shoot back across Rae in goal instead of sending a shot away from him. The opening goal looked miles offside but that was probably because there was one Queens player standing ahead of Connelly before he raced clear to round Ridgers and, eventually, put the ball into the net. At the time I thought he was offside but folk watching on the stream said he was played onside by Broadfoot. Still annoying given we had a taste of this minutes before with the aforementioned Paton chance. In the second half and Devine made a desperate challenge to stop a second Queens goal throwing himself in front of a goal bound shot from a few yards out. A bit of route one got us level with a long thump downfield by Ridgers and it looked like Gibson got in a right state trying to decide if he was going to clear the ball or not and Mckay took it off him to bundle in the equaliser. Route one Sutherland had a good chance to get the second goal for us but seemed to take forever to actually get his shot away and a Queens defender did well to deflect the effort behind for a corner. The second for ICT did come eventually with Mckay flicking the ball on for Walsh who got in behind the defence and finished well across Rae. But only a few minutes later Queens were back level and no one seemed to know what exactly had happened with Roy turning hom a cross whilst in an offside position. At the game I could only think that the ball had come off an ICT player so Roy couldn't therefore be offside and from what I've read it seems the ball was actually played to him by Carson so the goal, sadly, stood. An absolutely gutting result with Arbroath winning and other sides around us faltering. Queens looked decent in spells but seemed a bit of a mess at the back and it's frustrating that we couldn't take advantage of this as I felt we had enough chances to put the game to bed. That said I still think we were very poor again and whilst the likes of Mckay and McAlear turned in good performances we need more from the likes of Walsh (although he did score today) and we also need some fresh faces in quickly to try and give the squad a lift. Talking to BBC Sport Inverness CT head coach Billy Dodds: "My players showed a brilliant appetite to get back into it. When you feel it's gone against you with the first goal you can let the heads go down - they didn't. "They kept battling away and then we lose another questionable goal - not because of the officials but because of the interpretation of the law. There's a couple of players standing slightly offside and they gain an advantage." Queen of the South manager Allan Johnston: "I thought we played well for long periods. "It was a really good team performance and we were really unlucky to come away with just a point. "We were under pressure from a big, physical team at the end. We gave away cheap goals, which has been a thing too often from my point of view." Date: 15/01/2022 Venue: Caledonian Stadium Attendance: 479 Referee: Willie Collum Inverness CT: 2 Manager: Billy Dodds Lineup: Ridgers; Carson, Broadfoot, Devine, Deas, Walsh, Welsh, McAlear, MacGregor (Duku 64), Sutherland, Mckay Subs (not used): C Mackay; L Nicolson, Hyde, Duffy, Jamieson Scorers: Mckay (62), Walsh (73) Booked: Mckay (8), Deas (45) Sent Off: none Queen of the South: 2 Manager: Alan Johnston Lineup: Rae; Johnston, Nditi, Gibson (Fitzpatrick 76), East, Gordon (Debayo 70), McGrory, Liddle, Cooper, Connelly, Paton (Roy 76) Subs (not used): Cowie, Joseph, McKechnie, Junior Scorers: Connelly (39), Roy (77) Booked: Nditi (60), Liddle (61) Sent Off: none a