Mark Ridgers confident that past experience of fixture pile-ups can help Inverness Caledonian Thistle in promotion pursuit through play-offs
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It is no secret that it is an extremely tough ask for any team finishing third or fourth in the Scottish Championship to earn promotion through the play-offs.
No team has done it since the play-offs were introduced in the 2013/14 season, with the fixture pile-up often cited as a reason for that with six more games to get through at the end of the campaign.
Caley Thistle, though, are no strangers to dealing with hectic schedules.
In the 2017/18 campaign, Inverness played 13 games in the last six weeks of the season, and again last year they played 15 matches in less than two months to catch up with a backlog of postponed fixtures.
Goalkeeper Mark Ridgers was in the squad on both occasions, and believes that experience can help ICT go all the way in this season’s play-offs.
“It helps us, we know what to do, especially when we’ve got the momentum we have at the moment,” the experienced 31-year-old goalkeeper explained.
“It’s seven wins out of nine, that shows you that we’re in the right frame of mind.
“Our mindset is brilliant, we have a never say die attitude and we don’t want to lose games.
“To turn things around at Partick was brilliant, so fingers crossed we can do the same again on Friday.”
Inverness got off to the perfect start in the first leg of their quarter final against Partick Thistle earlier in the week.
Goals from Shane Sutherland and Austin Samuels turned a one-goal deficit on its head, giving the Caley Jags the advantage going into tonight’s match in the Highland capital.
One key message to the ICT squad ahead of kick off, though, will be that they cannot afford to take anything for granted.
Ridgers fully subscribes to that idea, adding that the work done between matches is crucial to put Inverness in the best possible shape.
“We have to start again,” Ridgers stressed.
“The big thing is recovery, games are coming thick and fast now with the format. It’s not ideal for the teams that finish third and fourth, but that’s the way it is.
“We’ve got people who look after us, the players are professional enough and the momentum is with us – we have to keep that going.
“We’ll just try to win as many games as possible and see where that takes us.”
