BILLY McKAY'S seventh goal of the season was enough to secure a place in the quarter-finals for Inverness Caledonian Thistle last night.
Terry Butcher's side emerged at Dens Park keen to bounce back from their first defeat of the campaign against Aberdeen at the weekend and McKay set the tone early on sending a shot just over the bar. The match was only nine minutes old, though, when the breakthrough came.
The visitors worked the ball well down the left side and Richie Foran gave himself a shooting chance following a one-two with Nick Ross.
The captain sliced his shot but the ball fell kindly for McKay eight yards out and the Northern Ireland internationalist reacted quickly to knock the ball home.
Both Ross and McKay went on to hit the frame of the goal but Dundee improved considerably after the halfway stage. However, Inverness goalkeeper Dean Brill saved well from Craig Beattie and Peter MacDonald before making a superb 89th-minute stop from Ryan Conroy to send the SPFL Premiership leaders through.
"The players have got to buy Dean Brill a big drink because he has kept us in the cup," said Butcher. "The team that turned up tonight is not the team that got us to the top of the league and the players have been told that in no uncertain terms."
Inverness, who had Danny Devine in for the injured Gary Warren, kept pushing forward after the opener and McKay saw a shot deflected over before Ross blazed over from 18 yards.
Butcher's side, who were one of last season's beaten semi-finalists, came close to a second in the 20th minute when Foran sent Ross down the inside right channel with the outside of his boot. The wide player held off a challenge and stabbed the ball past Kyle Letheren but could only watch as it bounced off the post.
Jim McAlister and Beattie had shots deflected wide as Dundee tried to force their way back into the game but Inverness were closing them down quickly and continued to possess a goal threat when they went forward. Dundee forced Brill into his first save with the last kick of the first half, when the ball fell for Beattie 16 yards out following a quick break. The former Celtic striker drilled a left-footed shot which Brill stopped with an excellent diving save.
John Brown's men continued to pin Inverness back but they struggled to break down a resilient defence which has now kept five clean sheets in eight games this season. Ross came close with a late curler but it wasn't to be for the home side.
Brill secured the victory when he dived low to his left to keep out Conroy's shot after a MacDonald backheel had set up a chance just inside the box. "We need to take our chances," said a disappointed Brown afterwards. "That has let us down this season but tonight they had a goalkeeper that was unplayable."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article