WHEN Derek McInnes surveyed Aberdeen's last-day loss to Motherwell last May, and with it the surrender of a second-place finish in Scottish football's top tier, he pledged progress this term.

There would be no replay of the nervous conclusion to the campaign they experienced then.

He was true to his word and the calculator was put to one side as we wondered when rather than if the race for the SPFL Premiership's runners-up position would be settled.

Aberdeen chose the Highlands as the setting for the confirmation, displaying a will to win, despite going behind to a superior Inverness Caledonian Thistle side who lacked the one ingredient their opponents have had throughout the past nine months - the killer touch.

Eward Ofere's early second-half goal for the hosts underlined how good they were, though eye-catching goalkeeping from Scott Brown in the opening 45 minutes when he made two saves from Marley Watkins and one from Nick Ross, had ensured that Aberdeen remained in touch and, through Niall McGinn, they showed Caley Thistle how thorough they are.

McGinn's edge-of-the-area free-kick skimmed the head of David Raven en route for the Inverness goal before hitting a second with less than twenty minutes remaining.

He praised his goalkeeper's part in the victory - "it could have been a different story if it wasn't for him" - and pointed to the importance of improving on last season's disappointment and secured their first silver medal place on the Premiership podium since 1994.

"It's a massive achievement as we wanted to progress from last season and guarantee that second spot," said McInnes. "It's been a long time since we achieved that so it's great for the club and the fans and it shows we are improving.

"It's good to be up there challenging and at least Celtic aren't running away with the league.

"Even when we aren't playing well, we are still winning games.

"That's always a good thing to have as we know we will always create chances.

"When those chances come then it's all about taking them at the right time and we did that against Inverness.

"There is a belief in the team; with the players we have we will always create chances and the second half was more like us and we created enough opportunities to score a few more.

"But Inverness could have scored a few in the first half as well."

Inverness's controversial path to the William Hill Scottish Cup final and the Josh Meekings hand-ball issue in last weekend's semi-final win against Celtic, has perhaps disguised the reality that St Johnstone are now just four points behind them and ready to challenge for third place.

The attempt to transform midfielder Marley Watkins into his side's principal striker following the departure of Billy McKay to Wigan Athletic in January, has failed and the player himself could not throw off his post-match funereal demeanour over his squandered opportunities.

"We missed too many good chances, especially myself," he said. "I had to score mine even though Scott Brown says it was a great save.

"The ball was bobbling across and maybe I was over-thinking it, but it was a bad miss.

"We should have killed the game off by half-time but we didn't.

"We're playing well and it's just a matter of taking our chances and defending a bit better at set pieces which we need to address.

"We want to go into the cup final with confidence and some wins behind us and that will be the aim for us starting from next Saturday.

"In making the final it has brought more spotlight on to the club and that can only be a positive thing.

"We haven't had the credit we deserve for being third in the league but we don't really care about that."

They might have a change of attitude, however, if St Johnstone, their opponents in Perth this Saturday, claw closer to them in the league table in that game.