FANTASY HIGHLAND

Mar 14 2005

Barry: Inverness are on dream run

By Hugh Keevins

A TEAM who started the season being written off as relegation candidates can now have a heavy influence on the outcome of the SPL championship.

It would-be unfair to dwell on Hearts' problems with a flu epidemic while dismissing what Inverness Caley Thistle did to earn their victory at Tynecastle.

Martin O'Neill paid the price for underestimating the Highlanders once before and he won't make the same mistake when Celtic go to the Highland capital on Wednesday night.

Craig Brewster's side have deservedly won the respect of their Premier League peers with an unbeaten run stretching six games and with seven of their last nine points coming from games against Hibs, Rangers and Hearts.

Tynecastle boss John Robertson is at war with the world at the moment, out of favour at the SFA and critical of the SPL's decision to make his club play a fixture for which they were sorely depleted through illness.

But even he couldn't deny a side bereft of star names have a work ethic that has started to worry more fashionable sides and created trouble at both ends of the table.

Barry Wilson scored the goal that sealed his team's win and his penalty was part of a collapse that saw Hearts concede their first goal due to sloppy defending and give away the second on the back of a mistake.

Christophe Berra said: 'I made a basic error. I should have cleared the ball but I was sleeping and didn't see their player creeping in behind me when I was attempting to give the ball back to Craig Gordon.'

Wilson, who was the victim of a blatant trip by the goalkeeper, said: 'There was no doubt it was a penalty.

'I was nervous before I took it and thought about giving the ball to Juanjo because I knew Robbo, our former boss, would have told Craig about my penalty-taking style. But the feeling passed and I thought we deserved to win.

'I think everybody would be in dreamland if we could beat Celtic in our next game and continue towards guaranteeing our safety in the SPL.

'Some of our supporters might think that job's done already but we're not there yet.We'll be in trouble if we start to make assumptions about where we stand. But confidence is sky high and no one would have predicted we could be in the position we're in at the moment.'

Now it's time for Hearts to take stock and come out fighting if they want to make one of the UEFA Cup places for next season on the strength of their league position.

There was a failure on the SPL's part to analyse the club's player availability in the wake of their illness problems and Robertson was left disadvantaged by having a side that was unbalanced by playing so many out of position. But he has to focus on the immediate future rather than persecute himself over the past.

The bottom line is Hearts gifted the opposition their opening goal in the 55th minute when Darren Dods took advantage of careless marking to head in a Richie Hart free-kick and the league table shows there is ground to be made up.

But Robbo is determined to do just that and said: 'We can recapture what has been lost because we still have to play Hibs twice and there is another game to come against Aberdeen.

'I wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes with our request for a postponement.And I still don't think you can give the paying public value for money when you have forwards who are trying to do the job of midfield players.'

Suspicion will remain that Hearts' call for an SFA inquiry into the circumstances which gave Rangers an injury-time penalty winner in the previous match played at Tynecastle cost them any semblance of sympathy when their request to delay this game was examined on Friday morning.

But Hearts need to forget about feeling sorry for themselves and get angry in order to get even.

MAN OF THE MATCH Craig Brewster(Inverness) Hearts - Gordon, Thomson, Webster, Berra, Wallace, Cesnauskis (Pereira 64), Janczyk (Thorarinsson 69), Wyness, Hamill, Miller (Elliot 84), Weir. Subs not used: Moilanen, Tierney, Pelosi, Lithgow.

Inverness CT - Brown, Tokely, Dods, McBain, Golabek, Wilson (Fox 90), Duncan, Hart, Munro, Juanjo (Bayne 79), Brewster (Prunty 80). Subs not used: Fraser, McCaffrey, Hastings, Fatai.

Referee - C Thomson.

Taken from the Daily Record