Football punditry is awash with nuggets of perceived wisdom. A team with a new manager will automatically win their next match. The form book goes out of the window on derby day. It never works out second time around.
Battling to disprove the latter concept are Craig Brewster and Malky Thomson. It is rare for a management duo to be afforded the chance to return to a club, even rarer for them to enjoy the same levels of success in their second spell.
The directors of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, therefore, are clearly men willing to take a risk. Having lost their manager and his assistant to Dundee United in January 2006, the Highland club could have been forgiven for looking elsewhere when they were again required to locate a manager 18 months later.
Instead, they turned once more to Brewster, then operating solely as a player with Aberdeen, who jumped at the chance to return to management at the Caledonian Stadium.
It took five months and the resignation of Donald Park as assistant manager, however, before the Brewster/Thomson pairing could be reunited.
Thomson had accepted a coaching role with Bobby Williamson at Chester with Brewster out of management but a chance to return to Inverness last month proved too great to turn down.
"It was a difficult decision to come back," he told The Herald. "Bobby had taken me down there and I was enjoying my time at Chester. It was a great experience but to come back and work with Craig was something that was always in my mind. You're never sure if that sort of thing can happen again but when he came in and gave me the offer then, for personal and family reasons, it made sense for me to go to Caley. And of course the decision to work with Craig again was a no-brainer for me."
It was to Thomson that Brewster turned when he was first approached by Inverness as the bold choice to become their player-manager in November 2004. The pair had struck up a friendship during their time at Hibernian, where Brewster was a veteran player of many clubs and Thomson an ambitious youth coach.
Brewster brought to his first management role a myriad of experiences gained from playing at both home and abroad, while Thomson contributed valuable lessons learned from nurturing the development of the under-18 teams at Hibs, Celtic and Rangers.
It is a partnership that has flourished. "I think Craig has helped me immensely and I think I've helped him, too," added Thomson. "He's got good experience as a player and now also as a manager. We've both been through the mill a wee bit and experienced different things that a management role throws at you. I would say we've come through the other end the better for it."
The rough times to which Thomson alludes were the nine months the pair spent in charge at Dundee United. The emotional tug of his former club had drawn Brewster to Tannadice and Thomson had dutifully followed. Results, however, were poor and they were sacked after just two victories in 28 league games.
Thomson is philosophical about the failure but determined to make amends during their second spell at Inverness. "You're learning all the time in life and I think that the spell at Tannadice was a massive learning curve. It was a decision we felt we had to make and we took it.
"Certainly, I've come back to Caley with more experience and I am determined to do well for the fans and for the team. Luckily for us, the Caley fans seem to have accepted us back and just got on with it. They appreciate we try to do things properly and want to bring success to this club.
We demand standards but it's standards that the players have set themselves. We just make sure the environment is right and encourage them."
Brewster's return, bolstered by the reappearance of his sidekick last month, has coincided with an upturn in Inverness' fortunes. Seventh place has been attained on the back of some eye-catching results, most notably the 3-2 victory over Celtic last month after they had been two goals behind.
Rangers' journey north tomorrow offers Inverness the chance to complete a memorable Old Firm double and Thomson believes it is not beyond the realms of possibility. "The Celtic match was a great day for everyone at the club and the boys thoroughly deserved their win.
"They have that never-say-die attitude and are not fazed by playing against anybody, and that includes Rangers or Celtic. Games against the Old Firm these days can go either way. We'll go into the Rangers game as we would any other game. We will have no fears at all, we'll be well prepared and we'll go for it. Our players look forward to the bigger occasions. These are the games the boys want to play in and it's up to them to show they belong at this level."
Thomson can take partial credit for the emergence of around half of the Rangers squad. As well as working with Alan Hutton, Chris Burke and Allan McGregor at Murray Park, he also coached Kevin Thomson, Steven Whittaker and Kirk Broadfoot during his time with the Hibernian youth team.
"I'm not surprised by how far all these players have come as they were all talented, keen players back then. Whittaker and Thomson, for example, were given an opportunity at Hibs which a lot of young players are desperate for. They got the exposure of first-team football and they've grabbed it with both hands as I fully expected they would. What you are seeing now is boys that are capable of holding a place down at Rangers."
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