Even in these days of ever-shifting mid-match league tables, Inverness Caledonian Thistle did not give anyone else a sniff of even briefly displacing them at the summit of the SPFL Premiership.

Ahead from the fourth minute, this swashbuckling team, who last season seemed happy to concede as long they scored more, have found a way to graft on to their attacking abandon a miserly defence that has yet to be breached.

This was a game of one half. Inverness were delightfully debonair in the first 45 minutes, weaving in and out of the visitors' defence and bamboozling their markers. They poured forward, particularly on their right-hand flank, of which several members of the press box remarked that full-back David Raven was playing more like Dani Alves. "It came back to haunt me in the second half," he laughed. "I started cramping up."

As for Motherwell? Well, of the nine different players who scored against the home side last season, only one was available to manager Stuart McCall on Saturday. The summer's mass exodus - and a back injury to Adam Cummins - meant that James McFadden was the only familiar threat. Not that it mattered. The problem for Motherwell is not trying to work out what is wrong, it is figuring out how to sort it.

Their team looked so sluggish they would have been better playing on lettuce. The introduction at half-time of Henri Anier and Stuart Carswell - and Zaine Francis-Angol shortly after, as McCall used up all his substitutes before the game was two thirds old - certainly helped, and captain Keith Lasley was his customary cross between Scrappy-Doo and a skilful, grey-flecked George Clooney. Until some fresh pace is injected, though, the speedy, howling ghosts of Chris Humphrey, Henrik Ojamaa et al will continue to haunt the abandoned flanks of Fir Park.

Still, it is probably unfair to be so critical; against lesser opponents Motherwell will surely pick up bags of more easily stolen points and will be there or thereabouts when Europa League places are reckoned. It is a testament to their manager's shoe-string success that this performance against the early best-of-the-rest-elect was so disappointing.

The first goal, coming so early, left the visitors rattled. A free kick 10 yards inside their half was floated to the back post and on to the head of a diving Richie Foran who had peeled away from Simon Ramsden - "We worked on it in training," Foran revealed - and moments later a James Vincent shot was deflected just over the bar and Lee Hollis' outstretched palms. Vincent is playing in Andrew Shinnie's vacated boots, and it looks as if he has even polished them a little; the playmaker was given a standing ovation when he was replaced in the second half.

As an exciting match rushed towards half-time, Inverness' inter-changing front four switched the play from left to right; Aaron Doran - a defence-pest throughout - slipped the ball to the rampaging Raven to run on to. He cut it back to Billy McKay, and when it arrived no-one in the stands was in any doubt of its final destination: past Hollis into the far corner for his third goal in as many games.

In a tighter second half, Motherwell's fightback was stifled by a scrappy defensive performance every bit as impressive as their first-period offensive blitz. The visitors created the odd chance without really looking like cutting the deficit. Anier was denied by two last-ditch blocks, while at the other end Doran blasted a volley over the bar, while his shot after a burst into the box was pushed around the post by Hollis.

Foran - who at times appeared to playing with doppelgangers, so much ground did he cover - praised his team-mates, saying defender Gary Warren had deserved to be man of the match instead. "I would have given him the champagne if my mother wasn't over," the Irishman grinned.

Is this the best Inverness team Foran has played in? "It's too early to say," he said, "but it is the best football we have played at the start of a season, that is for sure."