Billy Dodds wanted to see more courage from Inverness Caley Thistle's players in defeat to Morton as attention turns to Premier Sports Cup second round tie against Premiership side Motherwell
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Billy Dodds said he was disappointed to see some of Inverness Caley Thistle's younger players shrink into their shells against Greenock Morton.
Grant Gillespie's penalty sealed all three points for the visitors at the Caledonian Stadium as Inverness were never able to produce the quality they are capable of with the ball at feet.
Head coach Dodds spoke of how much experience his starting 11 was missing, with the likes of Sean Welsh, Aaron Doran, Tom Walsh and Shane Sutherland all missing through injury, but said he expected more fight from the youngsters who were on the pitch.
"I was disappointed with a few of the boys where I felt because of two results we have gone into our shells a bit," he stressed.
"That tells me more about my players. When things are not going well, I want to see them stand up and show they are men.
"I saw a few shrink. I knew we were low in confidence but we'd only lost one game last week, which had we won we'd have gone top of the league.
"We have to realise how young we are, and we have to get behind them. They could feel some sections of the crowd were on them but the crowd have been great.
"We have to give them something. It works two ways. We are finding it tough when we have young lads. I'd love to see some of them try to help.
“It teaches you about them. I don’t question any of my players in terms of attitude and application, but you can tell who your true leaders are – men.
“They go ‘okay, this is more difficult than usual’ and realise this is a scrap today. The attitude has to be to win 1–0 or make sure you don’t lose it.
“A few today looked as if they didn’t quite like it and were too timid. I want them to be men. You don’t win this league by being timid, you win this league by scrapping most of your results out."
READ MORE: Three takeaways from Caley Thistle's defeat to Morton
Cup distraction at Motherwell
The good news for Caley Thistle is that they will not have to wait long before getting a chance to return to winning ways.
A trip to Motherwell for the second round of the Premier Sports Cup is coming up on Wednesday evening, pitting Inverness against Premiership opposition for the second time this season.
They already overcame Livingston in the group stage to make it this far, but Dodds is adamant that the pressure is not off the Caley Jags at Fir Park despite being the underdogs.
“I don’t do free hits," he insisted.
"I want to go there and progress, try to beat them.
“When we’re in full flow, we’re capable of getting a result against Motherwell. Hopefully we can really give them a good cup tie.
“The one thing we had against Livingston was we were in a more confident mood. That has slipped a bit after losing to Partick Thistle and Morton is another wee dent.
“Now we’ve got to pick up and go the other way, because we know we’re capable of stringing together a run of results. We have to show a stronger mentality when things are not quite going our way.”
