Hard work is not over for league champions Inverness Caley Thistle
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Inverness Caledonian Thistle’s under-18 girls are league champions – but the hard work is not yet done for them this season.
A dramatic 2–1 win away at Grampian last Saturday was enough to see the Caley Jags clinch the under-18 Kim Little North League title.
Orla Evans had put them ahead in the first half, but Grampian fought back and equalised.
It was then left to Rhiannon Ebrihem to pop up with a last-gasp winner in the 90th minute, giving Inverness both the three points on the day and an unassailable lead at the top of the table.
Having wrapped up the title with two games still left to play, it may be easy for the youngsters’ celebrations to begin at the first possible opportunity.
However, coach Don Johnstone is keen for his players to remain focused, as there is still more that can be accomplished before the final whistle is blown on the campaign.
“We’ve had such a good season – more due to performances than anything else,” Johnstone explained.
“It’s a really young team, I think we have a core of seven or eight that could still play with the under-16s, so there’s a lot to improve on which is the amazing thing for me.
“I maybe didn’t expect to win the league so convincingly.
“We’ve still got a couple of games left, so the challenge now is to go the whole campaign undefeated.
“There’s still more to play for, 100 per cent. A lot of the girls have been within the north leagues for a while, so to compete with teams like Donside and Deveronvale and get good performances and results, it would mean a lot.
“We’ve done well, we got to two cup semi finals as well and unfortunately just couldn’t get over the line, but we played well.
“That’s the pleasing thing, but the challenge now is definitely to get through the final two games unbeaten.”
It has been a landmark year for the squad.
Inverness had already shown they could be competitive against the best Aberdeenshire had to offer, but it was a whole new challenge to do it over the course of a full season.
That test, though, has been passed with flying colours as Caley Thistle are 13 points clear of their nearest challengers, and Johnstone suspects they caught some rivals by surprise.
“They probably didn’t expect us to be so good,” he added.
“When we originally started the team, there was a friendly round of games, and you could tell we were still finding our feet as a team.
“We’ve had some really nice compliments from other teams. They all see that we’re trying to play good football, which for me is really pleasing.”
