Inverness Caledonian Thistle end winless run of five matches with impressive victory against Ayr United
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Scottish Championship
Ayr United 1
Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3
Scorers - Ayr: Chalmers (65) Inverness: Mckay (29) Boyes (55, 63)
Inverness Caledonian Thistle ended a winless run of five matches with an impressive victory against Ayr at Somerset Park.
Billy Mckay put Inverness in front in the first half before Morgan Boyes scored twice in the second half to put the visitors 3-0 up.
Former Caley Thistle midfielder Logan Chalmers pulled one back for Ayr midway through the second half, but were unable to reduce the deficit further to threaten a comeback.
The victory saw Inverness Caledonian Thistle leapfrog Ayr United into seventh place and four points clear of Arbroath and Queen's Park in the bottom two.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle made three changes to the team which lost 2-0 to Airdrie on Tuesday.
David Carson, Danny Devine and Billy Mckay also started for Inverness in place of Jake Davidson, Luis Longstaff and Nikola Ujdur.
Duncan Ferguson was also missing from the dugout as he served a one game suspension after being sent off after full time at Airdrie after a verbal exchange with the referee.
Ayr started brighter and former Caley Thistle attacking midfielder Chalmers went close to giving them the lead early with a thunderous shot which forced goalkeeper Mark Ridgers to tip the ball over the bar.
From the resultant corner, Jack Young managed to get a powerful shot on goal which Ridgers had to be at full stretch to stop finding the net.
Inverness took the lead just before the half hour mark. Miscommunication in the Ayr defence led to Max Anderson nicking the ball off goalkeeper Charlie Albinson. He laid it off for Mckay to fire into an empty net and put the visitors in front.
The visitors doubled their advantage 10 minutes into the second half when Cameron Harper's cross from the left wing found Boyes to nod home from close range.
Boyes then gave Inverness a three-goal advantage when he beat the Ayr defence in the air to nod home a Harper corner which crossed the line before it could be cleared by the hosts.
But Ayr reduced the deficit to two, two minutes later, when Chalmers managed to a launch a thunderous strike from the tightest of angles past Ridgers to make it 3-1.
Cameron Harper almost killed off the game for Inverness with seven minutes remaining when he saw his shot crash off the crossbar.
Ayr's Francis Amertey then saw his thunderous effort crash off the cross bar to the relief of the visitors.
But Inverness comfortably held on to their two-goal advantage to win for the first time since beating Queen's Park at the start of December.
Ayr: Albinson, Ahui, McGinty, Stanger, Reading, Dempsey, Young, Chalmers, Smith (Bryden 60), Murphy (Amartey 73), Dowds (Mckenzie 85).
Substitutes: Mutch, Rose, Syla, Senga, Watret, McAllister.
Caley Thistle: Ridgers, Duffy, Harper, Welsh (Longstaff 68), Devine, Gilmour, Carson, Mckay (Brooks 83), Anderson, Boyes, Shaw.
Substitutes: McKay, Delaney, Doran, Davidson, Thompson, Sheridan, Ujdur.
Referee: Gavin Duncan
Attendance 1826
