Danny Devine believes shutting out Queen’s Park is the latest example of Caley Thistle’s season going in the right direction.
The defender made two top-class blocks against the Championship leaders at the weekend as ICT held Owen Coyle’s high-fliers to a 0-0 draw in an entertaining Caledonian Stadium tussle.
It means Inverness stay sixth in the table with 15 games to go, they trail the Spiders by 10 points and are three points behind fourth-placed Partick Thistle.
Queen’s Park’s 44 league goals make them the highest scorers in the division and they are back in Inverness this weekend for the fourth-round of the Scottish Cup.
The draw for the hosts followed 6-1 and 4-1 wins against Cove Rangers and Arbroath, which ended a winless run in the league stretching back eight matches.
The visitors were 6-0 winners at Cove last week and made nine changes for their 1-0 SPFL Trust Trophy defeat against Raith Rovers in midweek.
Inverness put ‘bodies on the line’
Experienced centre-half Devine explained determined efforts all round helped the Highlanders keep their confident opponents out.
He said: “We would obviously have liked all three points, but you can see they are a good side. However, we matched them all over the park.
“Both teams had chances and it could have gone either way, but if you look at where we’ve come from the in the last couple of weeks, this was a strong, battling performance. We move on to this weekend.
71' | 0-0
Great block from Danny Devine as he prevents Simon Murray's effort heading goalwards.
— Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC (@ICTFC) January 14, 2023
“They had chances and it took a good bit of defending to keep them out.
“We put our bodies on the line – that’s what we do. We want to show the fans we’re all in this together.
‘We pride ourselves on clean sheets’
“We’re desperate to pick up wins and it was a battling performance.
“We’re always delighted with clean sheets. That’s what you want a defender – we pride ourselves on clean sheets.
“If we can do that, it gives the team a good chance of winning games.
“Queen’s Park are a threat going forwards but, as a team, the boys defended very well on Saturday.”
Chances arriving as confidence rises
The 30-year-old Northern Irishman, who is one of the survivors of Caley Thistle’s stunning 2015 Scottish Cup triumph, felt they had the potential to put the Spiders away had they just found an opener.
He said: “We scored 10 goals in our previous two games and then, on Saturday, we created a good number of chances. A couple of weeks ago, we were not getting those chances.
“Unfortunately, the boys didn’t manage to put them away at the weekend, but hopefully we will be back to scoring goals on Saturday.
“If one of those chances goes in, we could have gone on to win the game by more than a goal, but at 0-0 going into the latter stages, it can become a wee but nervy.
“Queen’s Park had a couple of chances as well. They are a good side, with plenty of movement from their forward players, but we stuck to our task very well.”
No reason to be fearful in cup clash
Devine, who has also starred for Partick Thistle and Dunfermline Athletic, insists after going toe-to-toe with the current front-runners, they have the belief they can beat them and progress in the Scottish Cup on Saturday.
He added: “We’ll be confident, especially at home when they’re coming back here.
“There is no fear at our end and it’s about us doing our jobs and going one better next week. If we can get the goal, it could change the game for us and we can really push on.
“We’d love another run in the Scottish Cup, but we’ll look at it one game at a time. We will rest up and see how we go.”
After this weekend, Caley Thistle return to league action on January 28 when they travel to Raith Rovers, who are just one place and one point below them in the division.