The 29-year-old has made it to two showpiece occasions during his career, but has endured disappointment both north and south of the border.

Foran was part of the Carlisle United squad that lost 2-0 to Bristol City in front of just over 50,000 fans at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, in 2003 in the final of the English Football League Trophy.

Two years later, the forward reached the Scottish League Cup final with a Motherwell side, who had current Caley Thistle boss Terry Butcher and assistant Maurice Malpas at the helm.

It was to end in a day of yet more commiserating, however, as the Lanarkshire club were beaten 5-1 by Rangers at Hampden.

While past finals have not been kind to Foran, he is hopeful that will all change as Caley Thistle begin their preparations this week to face Division One rivals Dundee in the Alba Challenge Cup final at McDiarmid Park on Sunday.

"We can't wait for it," he stated. "It's a game where the two teams are pretty even and I don't think they'll be any strong favourite going into the cup final.

"I think whoever performs on the day will take the cup home with them. Hopefully, we can get a big support down at the game because we'll need them and it certainly promises to be a great day out.

"I've been to a couple of cup finals and although I've lost both of them, I'm hoping it will be third time lucky.

"Some players can go through their careers without winning anything, let alone getting to a cup final, so I really want a winner's medal on my CV.

"We've done so well to get there and I'm just hoping that the players, the management and the supporters can all have a great day out."

Caley Thistle will go into Sunday's encounter with confidence restored after Saturday's success at the expense of Airdrie United helped to eradicate the memory of a poor performance the previous weekend when Ross County inflicted a second league defeat on their near-neighbours.

With the cup final on the horizon, a good performance was required by the players to ensure they gave themselves a chance of starting in Perth this weekend, but Foran is adamant that there was no talk beforehand about the forthcoming game against Dundee.

"We didn't even think about the cup final," he added. "It wasn't even on our minds.

ICT's Richie Foran in action against Airdrie at the weekend. Ken Macpherson

"All we wanted to do was make up for what happened against Ross County as we knew the cup final would take care of itself.

"There are going to be times this season when we'll play badly, but it was all about the three points against Airdrie and we can now go into the cup final full of confidence.

"I thought against Airdrie we showed a great attitude, great professionalism, but at times we were just lacking that killer pass.

"I think there were actually a few disappointed in the dressing room afterwards, but I'm happy because on another day we would have scored four or five.

"For me, everything was perfect except that final pass, but that will come, so I'm delighted, especially with the three points."

After all the criticism of Caley Thistle's lack of consistency this season, Foran insists recent matches prove they are beginning to find some middle ground.

Four wins and a draw from their previous six league games has helped push Inverness back into contention for promotion, although Foran knows that the next couple of months will help determine if the Highland Capital club can maintain their push for the Division One title.

"We're still sitting in there in a nice position and we certainly don't want to be peaking too early," he said.

"We would like to have got a couple more points, but over Christmas is going to be a big period for us because we want to set ourselves up for kicking on in January.

"However, it's great the position we're in now. We've got the cup final to look forward too and we're sitting five points behind the league leaders, so there's no problems at this club."

sports@inverness-courier.co.uk

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