Cove Test

 

It's a difficult fixture on Saturday as Inverness head East to Altens to face table toppers Cove Rangers at the Balmoral Stadium. It's a 3:00pm kick-off in what will be a serious test of our resolve to remain in League1. A few weeks ago we were rubbing shoulders with Cove. Now we are polar opposites with the Caley Jags at the South end of the table. Scott Kellacher will be looking to get his first win in charge and remains positive after taking a point from Kelty Hearts last weekend. Three weeks after this game, we will be back at Cove for a 3rd round fixture in the Scottish Cup.

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Match/Ticket/Supporters Bus/Info

Expressions of Interest

 

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Our Season so Far on the park

INVERNESS CT:  D L D D W D D D L  / W L  Our season got off to a slow start with a draw at home to Dumbarton followed by a penalty defeat at Annan. Another two draws against Montrose (h) and Kelty Hearts (a) before our first win of the season over Queen of the South at the Caledonian Stadium. We beat Stirling Albion 3-0 to send us into a fourth Rnd tie away to Livingston thanks to a brace from Adam Brooks and a strike from Adam MacKinnon. That was followed up by us throwing away a two goal lead at Alloa to end up with a 2-2 draw six minutes later. A Danny Devine volley and Calum MacLeod with his first goal for the club were the scorers at Recreation Park. Last time out we had a disappointing 1-1 draw at home against Cove Rangers who opened the scoring through Adam Emslie. James Nolan on loan from Manchester United's youth squad levelled the game before the hour. Next up was a home game against Stenhousemuir. Quite frankly this was a dull game with neither side able to score although Musa Dibaga did make a wonderful penalty save in the first half. Relegated Arbroath was our final game of the opening round of fixtures and despite creating enough chances, we came away from Gayfield with our second defeat of the League1 campaign. Away from League duty last weekend, we put up a good fight against Livingston in the Challenge Cup at Almondvale but lost out 5-4 in a penalty shoot-out after it finished 2-2 over the ninety minutes. Paul Allan and Charlie Gilmour were our scorers during the ninety minutes.

Our first game in the second round of fixtures turned out to be Duncan Ferguson's last stand. It ended like his first game in charge, a win as we defeated Annan 1-0 at home. Administration and management removal followed by five players being released and fifteen points being wiped off our total. First game after Admin was at Dumbarton with Scott Kellacher as head coach and Billy Mckay his assistant on and off the park. Alas it ended in a 3-1 defeat after a promising first hour. Kelty Hearts came North next and went away with a point in a 1-1 draw.

Cove Rangers: L L D L W W D L W  / W W W  After a disappointing League Cup campaign that included a 5-0 drubbing at home by Spartans, Cove got off to a poor start in the League before getting their first win five games into the season when they beat Montrose 1-0 followed by a 3-1 win at Kelty before drawing with the Caley Jags in Inverness. Unfortunately for us they have since gone four games on the trot taking full points. Three of the last four games ended 2-0 to Cove and last week they pumped Dumbarton 3-0 at the Rock. This has shot them to the top of the table with Alloa Athletic on 20 points.

The first encounter this term ended all square in the Highlands: Drab Draw: Inverness hosted Cove Rangers and were without Flynn Duffy, Lewis Nicolson and Ethan Cairns. Paul Allan and former Cove players Luis Longstaff and Charlie Gilmour had returned to the squad with Gilmour and Longstaff starting. Cove had won their last two outings and put three past Kelty Hearts last weekend with Mitch Megginson always a threat up front. Adam Emslie tapped in at the back post to open the scoring after twenty minutes. Substitute James Nolan levelled five minutes after the restart following a corner. A replacement official was required to complete the game and despite fifteen minutes added on, there was no further scoring. FULL TIME: 1-1 The only positive to take from today was Caley Jags fan Jamie MacKinnon stepping in to save the game being abandoned and running the line after the referee went off having made too many wrong decisions... Or maybe he was injured. Apparently the tannoy announcement was so successful the club will do the same at next weeks game with Stenhousemuir and will ask the fans if there is a manager in the stands willing to step in and do Dunc's job. There you go Jamie. This week running the line, next week running the club. The world is your lobster.

LATEST TEAM NEWS

INVERNESS Hope to have Charlie Gilmour back and Ethan Cairns and Lewis Nicolson will be in the squad again.

 

 

COVE RANGERS had this squad at Dumbarton and came away with an excellent 0-3 win courtesy of three second half goals. An og by Durnan started the Dumbarton rot swiftly followed by Megginson firing into the top corner. (Screamer alert!) Adam Emslie rounded it all off in the last minute slotting into the bottom corner after being set up by Megginson.

Four wins on the bounce have rocketed Cove to the top of the table after a slow start to the season that included the hammering from Spartans and being dumped out of the Challenge Cup by East Kilbride

 

 

 

 

 

Pos	Team	Pld	Gd	Pts
1	Cove Rangers	12	6	20
2	Alloa Athletic	12	6	20
3	Arbroath	12	0	18
4	Stenny	12	1	17
5	Queen of Sth	12	-2	17
6	Kelty Hearts	12	6	16
7	Montrose	12	2	16
8	Annan Ath	12	-13	13
9	Dumbarton	12	-4	12
10	Inverness CT	12	-2	-2

 

 

 

 

Fantastic guys: well done all!!

Excellent

Boom 

We were excellent 2nd half I thought. Pele was sitting with Grassa and Savage, was nice to see him.

Only 20 points behind now, even after being deducted 15 ! 😉

Amazing how much better things are when the bad apples are removed from the barrel. 

Edited November 9, 2024Nov 9 by RednBlackComeback

Just knew that win was coming and hopefully it is the start of a long run.

|Well done lads and this is just the start - enjoy the ride. 

Am I correct in remembering that’s the first time we’ve picked up 3 points since being a goal down since Queen’s Park last December? Either way, domineering second half performance…. On the bus back from Aberdeen feeling more positive than longer than I care to think 

1 hour ago, Pele_Is_God said:

We were excellent 2nd half I thought. Pele was sitting with Grassa and Savage, was nice to see him.

Aw… I would have loved to get a photo of the three of them!

26 minutes ago, NuclearDachshund said:

Am I correct in remembering that’s the first time we’ve picked up 3 points since being a goal down since Queen’s Park last December? Either way, domineering second half performance…. On the bus back from Aberdeen feeling more positive than longer than I care to think 

You are right that conceding the first goal is usually fatal for us - but I think the last comeback was at the end of January when we won 3-2 at Raith (when we thought Alex Samuel was going to be our saviour after his hattrick)

13 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

You are right that conceding the first goal is usually fatal for us - but I think the last comeback was at the end of January when we won 3-2 at Raith (when we thought Alex Samuel was going to be our saviour after his hattrick)

Right enough…. Indeed that was equally a joyful watch and a false dawn 

2 hours ago, Pele_Is_God said:

We were excellent 2nd half I thought. Pele was sitting with Grassa and Savage, was nice to see him.

Yep, Pele is God. Good times. They’ll be back!

Today’s result takes Kellacher’s win rate to 33%, overtaking Ferguson’s 29%.

34 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Today’s result takes Kellacher’s win rate to 33%, overtaking Ferguson’s 29%.

For me it’s 50% as we should discount the Dumbarton game given what he and the players had been through in the days leading up to it. 

I hadn’t until today been taking much notice of League One crowds apart from Inverness ones (which seem to end in 01-05 incredibly frequently) and was quite surprised to see the crowd at Cove today was as low as 551. At Inverness they remain in the 1509-1900 range and today in League One, the 1565 for the local derby between Montrose and Arbroath was way above any of the others and probably exceptional because it was a derby.

So far, ICT don’t seem to have done too badly maintaining the kind of crowds they had in the Championship with a fairly small drop off. Let’s hope that this can continue because a fall to what emerges as typical L1 numbers would be fairly disastrous. A credible campaign to survive in the third tier would certainly help.

Absolutely buzzing after that result.  Well done to all concerned. A nice wee winning run to finish off a desperate 2024 is the Xmas present we all need. Perfectly achievable I think.

Onwards and upwards

Scott &co. & his boys deserve all the credit we can give them .Their fight back yesterday was incredible against the top team .So proud of them,and to see Scott's delight when we scored was heart warming .They played their hearts out right up to the end .Well done to one and all .Keep it up boys we can do this .🌟❤️💙

 

 

Brilliant to see the two young western isles lads on the score sheet!

Also the ICT social media team were brilliantly on point in posting “siri, play Western Isles by Peat and Diesel”…need to have that tune at the Caledonian Stadium to encourage them!

On a  day when a depleted Crystal Palace lost at home and a depleted Sutton United team lost away, coming out of an event and seeing this briliant result really made my weekend. It feels like the team are playing with a bit more freedom, conviction and energy. And we still have some gems in the team. Obviously the worry is if we get a Dodds-era injury crisis [which with our squad is now 2-3 players being out!] it could make life more difficult.... but aside from that I am buzzing for my trip up for QotS away in two weeks time

It's credit to Kellacher that the mindset and approach has changed so immediately. We're seeing it in how the team play and in press conferences and interviews that we've moved from an attitude of 'must not lose' to a more positive 'we can win'. Things aren't perfect but that's being acknowledged with a view to working on improvements instead of throwing out tired excuses and complaints and playing victim.

Survival in league 1 is still a monumental challenge and whether we manage it or not there feels like there is a true sense of belief about the club again that's been missing for a long time.

We play the league leaders again next week and I'm looking forward to it.

16 hours ago, IcyT said:

Good times. They’ll be back!

They are back! 

1 hour ago, Northern_jaggie said:

Also the ICT social media team were brilliantly on point in posting “siri, play Western Isles by Peat and Diesel”…need to have that tune at the Caledonian Stadium to encourage them!

Who do P&D support I wonder. It would be great if they could write a tune for the club.

First time at an ICT game for a shamefully long time and really enjoyed that! Didn't see what the penalty was for (can anyone enlighten me cos nobody appealed for it that I saw?) Thought the team were excellent in the second half, proper attack after attack and our win was deserved. Hopefully the start of a winning run. Also shout out to the team bus driver for offering to let our daughter take the drivers seat, she loved it 😀 

22 hours ago, Robert said:

For me it’s 50% as we should discount the Dumbarton game given what he and the players had been through in the days leading up to it. 

Tbf we could use the Dunc logic for his games where artificial pitches don't count, games we conceded don't matter and defeats are only considered if if they are against teams we don't play ........so technically dunc has a much higher record than many fans are giving credit

The second half was definitely the best I have seen from us in a long long time. Positive going forward with the belief to shoot from distance

Quite ironic really that  the two young guys who scored  would probably be nowhere near the starting 11 if the plans for  Kelty had been forced through.

Both would be out on loan ,replaced by some ageing central belt duffers who couldn't get a game anywhere elsewhere and who just turned up on a Saturday.