Missed penalty proves costly as Inverness Caledonian Thistle forced to settle for a point against Alloa Athletic
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 2 (Duffy, Keatings)
Alloa Athletic 2 (Cameron, Trouten)
A hectic final 15 minutes eventually saw Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Alloa Athletic share the spoils in the Championship.
The Wasps took a first half lead through Innes Cameron, and for a long spell ICT did not look like responding.
However, goals from Wallace Duffy and substitute James Keatings turned the game on it's head.
Miles Storey had a chance to put the game to bed from the penalty spot only to be denied by Neil Parry, before Alan Trouten scored from a penalty at the other end to save a point for the visitors.
Caley Thistle were the brighter team in the early exchanges, sustaining pressure around the visitor's box including a succession of corners.
Roddy MacGregor had an appeal for a penalty after looking to be through on goal, but the claims were waved away.
Alloa were the ones who took the lead though, with Alan Trouten capitalising on a bad pass from Danny Devine to win the ball back without many defenders to beat.
He gave the ball to Raymond Grant, who fed a good through ball into the path of Innes Cameron, who went around Mark Ridgers and scored into an empty net.
From there, Inverness seemed to lose a lot of momentum.
The Wasps sat in without the ball, reverting to a 4–5–1, and Inverness found it difficult to break them down – they attempted to take quick free kicks and throw ins to catch Alloa's players out of position, but to no avail.
The most joy they had was though Nikolay Todorov in the air, and he went inches away from levelling the scores from Cameron Harper's free kick.
MacGregor did have the ball in the back of the net before half time, but it was ruled out for a foul by Shane Sutherland.
Inverness huffed and puffed for most of the second half with no reward, before a moment of magic from an unlikely source got them back on level terms.
Harper sent a cross in from the left that found it's way through to Wallace Duffy on the other side of the box.
The right back checked back on his weaker left foot, and stroked the ball inside the far post to register his first goal for the club.
Two substitutes would link up just minutes later to put ICT in front.
Miles Storey found space again down the left flank to pick out the incoming James Keatings, who found the bottom corner despite Neil Parry getting a glove on the ball.
It could have been even better for the Caley Jags with nine minutes to go, when they were awarded a penalty.
Sutherland's shot was deemed to have been blocked by Grant, with the referee pointing to the spot, but Storey's effort was saved by Parry well down to his right.
It may have been easy to assume at that stage that there was only one likely winner, but Alloa hit back again with a penalty of their own.
Harper was the man at fault for Inverness, bringing down Jon Robertson, and Trouten coolly converted to level the scores one more time.
The point was still enough to see Inverness move up to sixth in the league table, but they will not be able to shake the feeling that it was a missed opportunity to get two more points.
