Three things to take away from Inverness Caley Thistle's home win over Arbroath as Championship play-off bid stays intact
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
It was another big win for Inverness Caledonian Thistle as they welcomed Arbroath to the Highland capital.
After an uneventful first half, the Caley Jags kicked up a gear for the second 45 minutes, going ahead through a well-worked team goal from back to front – finished off by Nathan Shaw.
They would practically seal the points when Scott Allardice's penalty made it 2-0, but a red card for Jay Henderson could easily have made it a nervy finish.
Still, Inverness would see out the game with minimal fuss to claim another crucial three points and move to within two of fourth-placed Ayr United.
With Caley Thistle's play-off hopes still very much alive, then, here are three things to take away from the victory plus post-match reaction from head coach Billy Dodds and defender Robbie Deas.
Shifting sides
I've written a lot these last couple of months about Jay Henderson when covering Caley Thistle, but let's cover how Inverness try and make him as effective as can be.
It may seem counter intuitive, but ICT don't just feed him in on the right flank whenever possible to get him crossing into the box.
Instead, they try and build more slowly down the left, drawing the opposition over to one side, before trying to switch the ball quickly to Henderson.
That gives him plenty of space, and more often than not has him isolating his marker one-on-one – giving him the option to either cross if there are teammates in good positions, or take his man on and move closer to goal.
Early on against Arbroath, this worked fairly well, but when ICT's passing lost its accuracy and crispness, it became difficult to get Henderson involved because he did not have enough space to show his ability.
It's something that other teams will be keeping a close eye on, and while there will be times they will need to move to one side to stop Caley Thistle cutting through them there, expect to see players primed to shuttle back across to try and snuff out the on-loan St Mirren man.
Head coach Billy Dodds' thoughts: "I thought we had to show every part of what you have to do to win a game.
"We are going well, so Arbroath made it difficult for us and we had to find a way to win the game. I was pleased with the win, but also the way we went about it because we had to show that patience.
"We've been asked a lot of question about how to win a game, and I thought we showed every ingredient to win it."
The Caley Thistle way
One thing you can practically never say about Caley Thistle is that they've done anything the easy way.
The points felt fairly secure when Scott Allardice's penalty put Inverness 2-0 up, but just when you think it might be a boring end to the game Henderson gets shown a red card.
To their credit, ICT regrouped well when it would have been easy to lose their heads, and might even have looked more difficult to break down than they did immediately before going two goals ahead.
That's the kind of resolve and resilience they will need if their promotion play-off charge is to continue over the coming weeks, and it's not the first time they have had to show it this season.
Still, you have to believe Billy Dodds is desperate for a boring win at this point.
Billy Dodds' thoughts: "I've seen (the red card), and I think the wee man goes in – he just doesn't know how to tackle, does he? It's a forward's tackle, and he has come down on McKenna's boot.
"He hasn't gone in to do him, there's no malice there, but I can see why the referee has made the decision.
"It's one we're going to have to accept, I'll put it that way, even though there's no malice, intent or force. I don't think it's violent, I don't think there's intent or he's out of control – he just caught McKenna."
A drastic momentum swing
Six wins in seven matches, with bottom of the table Cove Rangers up next, has a pretty nice ring to it eh?
Inverness have shown time and time again that they are capable of going on these runs. How far this particular one will take them remains to be seen, but confidence will be sky high at the Caledonian Stadium right now.
Sitting two points behind fourth-placed Ayr United – who still have to play Partick Thistle, Queen's Park and ICT themselves – is a pretty good situation to be in for a side who not too long ago were nervously looking over their shoulders at the prospect of a relegation play-off battle.
Even when not at their best, the Caley Jags are finding ways to win, which should be heartening for anyone with a connection to the club.
Most of all the players should have plenty of belief that they can extend their Championship campaign past May 5 – and maybe even go all the way to the Premiership.
Robbie Deas' thoughts: "Every game in the league is a cup final right now. We've been in this situation before with the play-offs, and it was hard to take last season.
"A lot of us are still in the team from that, so we've learned from it, so it shows the type of team we've got when you see the run we've gone on, and on our day we can beat anyone.
"We've got a good enough team to go and win this league – it has just been one of those seasons unfortunately, but there is no reason we can't go on and achieve what we couldn't last season, so that's our goal."
