Inverness Caledonian Thistle take narrow lead into home leg of Premiership play-off quarter final against Partick Thistle thanks to goals from Shane Sutherland and Austin Samuels
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Partick Thistle 1 (Crawford)
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2 (Sutherland, Samuels)
Inverness Caledonian Thistle came from behind to take a slender lead in the play-offs against Partick Thistle.
It had been the Glasgow outfit who took the lead in the second half through Robbie Crawford, and Ian McCall's men threatened to open up a wider cushion ahead of the return leg.
Goals from Shane Sutherland and Austin Samuels turned the game on it's head, though, sending Inverness back up to the Highland capital with one foot in the next round.
After making five changes to his starting line-up for the win over Hamilton, Caley Thistle head coach repeated the feat with a handful more at Firhill.
Danny Devine and Kirk Broadfoot returned to the heart of defence, while Sean Welsh and Reece McAlear were brought back into the middle of the park and Logan Chalmers was restored to the side.
That meant Cameron Harper, Lewis Hyde and Joe Hardy dropped to the substitutes' bench, with Wallace Duffy failing to recover from the calf issue he picked up against Accies and Roddy MacGregor also missing altogether.
Both teams struggled to get into a rhythm in the early stages, with several stoppages because of injuries and head knocks.
Shane Sutherland did have an early sight of goal, only to strike the ball wide, while Brian Graham nearly caught Mark Ridgers in possession at the other end before Inverness suffered a blow when Tom Walsh was forced off through injury.
Either keeper only had simple saves to make, with Mark Ridgers making a simple save from Tunji Akinola and Jamie Sneddon seeing off tame efforts from Sutherland, Reece McAlear and Billy Mckay.
Inverness did go close to breaking the deadlock with the final action of the first half, when Sean Welsh played a diagonal ball through for a charging Robbie Deas, but although the full back expertly took the ball under control his shot went across the face of goal and wide.
Brian Graham would have thought he had the golden opportunity to send Partick ahead shortly after the restart when Scott Tiffoney sent a cross into the middle that was headed on to a yellow and red shirt, falling kindly for the target man yards from goal.
Ridgers, though, was able to get an important boot in the way to prevent Graham finding the net, keeping the scoreline goalless.
However, that would not last much longer as Robbie Crawford opened the scoring 10 minutes into the second half.
Partick had broken forward on a counter attack, and a neat bit of footwork from Graham sent Crawford in one-on-one where he made no mistake to give the hosts the lead.
Inverness tried to respond, and they did force a save out of Sneddon through Chalmers, before Sutherland missed the target from just inside the area.
Sneddon has been extremely reliable for Partick this season, but with just under 20 minutes left on the clock he made what threatened to be a costly mistake.
Billy Mckay found the space to take aim from just outside the area, and although it looked like a simple stop for the Partick keeper he spilled the ball into the path of Sutherland, who was left with a tap in to equalise.
Partick had a brilliant chance to hit back quickly though, as David Carson slipped when trying to play the ball back to Ridgers inside the last 15 minutes, inadvertently playing in Juan Alegria – only for the Partick substitute to miss the target with his effort.
Instead, it was the Caley Jags who took the lead through a substitute of their own: Austin Samuels. He got on the end of a fantastic cross by Shane Sutherland to find the net and give ICT the advantage in the 82nd minute.
That was the final goal to go in at Firhill, giving Caley Thistle the advantage going into the home leg of the Premiership play-off quarter final in Inverness on Friday night.
Partick Thistle: Sneddon, Holt, Tiffoney, Bannigan, Graham (Smith 86), Jakubiak (Alegria 75), McKenna, Akinola, Crawford, Docherty, Hendrie.
Subs not used: Firth, Foster, Bell, Murray, Stanway.
Caley Thistle: Ridgers, Welsh, Deas, Devine, Carson, Mckay (Hardy 75), Sutherland, Walsh (Hyde 19 (Samuels 60)), Broadfoot, Chalmers (Harper 75), McAlear.
Subs not used: MacKay, Allardice.
Referee: Steven McLean
Attendance: 2919 (395 away)
Yellow cards: Partick Thistle – Hendrie (40), Graham (76); ICT – Chalmers (48), Samuels (90).
