Caley Thistle might be facing a congested run-in but manager John Robertson admits he is not sold on the prospect of Scottish football moving to a summer season.
Saturday’s match against Livingston was called off due to a frozen pitch, leaving Caley Jags facing 12 leagues matches as well as an IRN BRU Cup final over the next six weeks.
There has been a growing clamour for the SPFL to consider switching to a summer schedule after a raft of weather-related call-offs.
Inverness have been out of action since a 2-0 defeat at home to Morton on February 24 but Robertson, who sampled a summer schedule during a stint managing League of Ireland side Derry City in 2007, is not convinced it would be the answer.
“At Derry we still had games off and they play February to October,” he said. “This comes up every year, if we have a good winter then no one sees the need for it.
“We’re not a country where we know that we will get four months of sunshine, we’ve had games called off in April and May because of waterlogged pitches.
“The amount of games we have is the problem. It’s not when you play them, it’s how many you play.”
Robertson could be a collision course with SPFL chiefs as their preferred date for rearranging the Livingston game is March 20, four days before the cup final against Dumbarton.
Caley Thistle have said they would rather play the game on April 24, four days before the Championship’s final round of fixtures.
Robertson said: “We’ve been successful in this cup and we’re being punished for it.
“It would be grossly unfair to be asked to play a game on March 20 when our cup final opponents have a free week. It suits both us and Livingston, so why can’t it be played on April 24? But we’ve had no favours from the league this year, so we don’t expect any again.”
Tonight’s match at Dunfermline sees Caley Thistle coming up against a team which has lost its way after a strong start.
The Pars sit in sixth and are still in contention for a play-off place but are on a run of seven matches without a win.
Robertson said: “We got a chasing down there early in the season when we had a brand new team. It wasn’t a nice experience but we turned them over in the last league game here, so we go there with confidence.”
Coll Donaldson and Nathan Austin are unavailable tonight but both are expected to be back soon having returned to training.