Pepper champion

Neil White

Pepper champion

With the last action of the game, Conor Pepper scored an equaliser for Inverness Caledonian Thistle on his debut for the club. Most of the time, that would be pretty much the whole story. In this match, it was barely a sub-plot. There were two penalties and one straight red card. Neither captain saw out the first half. And Inverness produced one of the gutsiest 45 minutes you could hope to see from a team reduced to 10 men before the end of the first half.

"It feels like a win and that's one of the best performances from any Inverness team I have been in charge of," said Terry Butcher, the visitors' manager.

Hearts started well and scored a fine goal. Arvady Novikovas was the last man in a conveyor belt along which the ball moved from the left wing to the right. Andrew Driver and Darren Barr had gradually exploited an overlap opportunity for Hearts and Novikovas came off his flank to tuck Barr's pass back across Ryan Esson's dive, a neat finish to an excellent move.

Inverness, though, were also looking good down the flanks. A slalom by Shane Sutherland through the inside right line beat two Hearts players and drew another before he slipped the ball to his left. Andrew Shinnie planted his left foot, swung with his right but just missed the bottom-left corner.

On the other side, Butcher's team tried to get at Hearts' inexperienced full-back, Callum Paterson, a ploy that would yield both of their goals. Graeme Shinnie, the Inverness left-back, got beyond him early on but pulled a shot beyond the far post.

With the clock ticking down on the half, it all kicked off. First a free-kick from deep on the left ended with Marius Zaliukas, the Hearts captain, and Esson, the Inverness goalkeeper, colliding in the air. Play was stopped, however, for a hold by Simon King on Sutton as the ball came over. It is not the first time Sutton has drawn that kind of foul. The forward knows how to get on the wrong side of his man and he knows how to sell the contact, too. He can also capitalise on the decision, as he did with a penalty drilled low to the left of Esson's dive.

Zaliukas played on for a couple of minutes before he was replaced by Scott Robinson and Barr dropped to centre-back.

Then, Richie Foran, the Inverness captain, lost the plot. Ryan McGowan, the Hearts midfielder, took a loose touch on the ball, inviting Foran in. His challenge ticked most of the boxes for the red card that followed as McGowan whipped the ball away and Foran hit him hard and high.

At half-time, West Brom's lead over Liverpool was celebrated like it was Hibs who were losing. Tynecastle was feeling good. But Inverness came out with the fury of the aggrieved. After surviving a Driver shot that missed by a foot, the 10 men hurled themselves at their opponents. Soon, Butcher replaced his right-back, David Raven, with an extra midfielder, Josh Meekings.

They were pinning Paterson down again, too. Eventually, he gave up the penalty that killed the party vibe. Graeme Shinnie charged at the young right-back once more and this time as he swerved away he teased out a foul and went down. Jamie Macdonald got a hand to Andrew Shinnie's penalty, but it was hit hard and whistled up into the net.

"We were going for it [in the second half] perhaps too much," said John McGlynn, the Hearts manager. "When we lost the ball we were vulnerable to the counter attack and that is how it panned out."

Hearts wrested back the upper hand and there were chances for McGowan – who volleyed just wide after Robinson lifted the ball over the backline – and Paterson, who drove hard and wide. But Paterson was pinned again for the leveller, when Graeme Shinnie worked a one-two with Billy McKay, beating the full-back and crossing to the back post. There, Pepper popped the ball into the roof of the net with his right thigh.

"It was just a surreal experience," he said. "Scoring at the end, in front of our fans – I was happy to get on, but to score is amazing. I'm trying to take it all in."

"He's on buttons, absolute buttons," said Butcher of the midfielder who scored on his debut. "He's from Ireland and he probably thought he was playing Gaelic football, trying to get it over the bar. If that had gone over the bar I would have been in every bar in the festival tonight."

Taken from the Herald