Cammy Harper says Caley Thistle must treat their play-off semi-final second leg at home to Montrose like a cup final as they fight to remain in the Championship.
The left-sided full-back/midfielder helped the Highlanders stave off a determined display from their League One hosts in Tuesday’s 0-0 first leg draw at Links Park.
Inverness’ hopes of progress to the final, against Hamilton or Alloa Athletic, who shared four goals on Tuesday, now comes down to Saturday’s clash at the Caledonian Stadium.
Defeat will send ICT down to the third tier for the first time since they won promotion as runners-up to Livingston 25 years ago.
Harper calls for a swift start in return leg
Harper, who 12 months ago was preparing for a Scottish Cup final against Celtic, hopes ninth-placed Championship finishers Caley Thistle can fly out the traps and avoid an upset against Montrose.
He said: “We’re the Championship team. Everyone says we’re the heavy favourites, but we know from playing in promotion play-off games, anything can happen.
“We need to switch on and be ready for Saturday.
“Saturday’s game is massive for us – it’s like a cup final because it’s a one-off game and it’s level-pegging.
“We’re at home on our bigger pitch, and Montrose are part-time and we’re full-time, so you would say this game suits us better.
“We must go into the game fully at it, because we were not at it on Tuesday.
“We need to be right at the mark from the get-go on Saturday.”
Inverness looking forward to playing back on grass after clean sheet positive
Like his manager Duncan Ferguson, 22-year-old Harper felt the synthetic surface of Links Park didn’t help Inverness’ passing game on Tuesday.
He said: “We were not at the races on Tuesday, and everyone could see that.
“I don’t know if that was due to the plastic pitch, which we haven’t played on since late January (at Raith Rovers).
“That was Montrose’s home ground and they’re obviously used to it.
“All in all, a draw is probably a good result to bring back to Inverness.
“We’ll be playing on grass again, it’s a bigger pitch – which will probably suit us – and we should be able to create a lot more chances on Saturday.
“I thought we were poor in the final third on Tuesday. We know that.
“We’re realists and we understand that we didn’t play well.
“Sometimes when you don’t play well, you just have to ensure you don’t lose the game, and we defended our box pretty well, considering what Montrose were throwing at us.”
Harper was satisfied to have left the Angus town, having kept Stewart Petrie’s promotion-chasers at bay.
He added: “The last couple of goals we conceded have been second phases from set-plays. Those have been really sloppy goals to be losing, and it has ended up killing us.
“Taking a clean sheet from Montrose was, therefore, a positive, but we didn’t play well and sometimes you must realise it’s not your day, but it’s over two legs, so it’s a slight positive to have the second game at home.”
Harper upbeat about Caley Thistle’s chances
The Caley Jags only won four home league matches all season, but two of those came recently against Arbroath and Morton.
Harper is hopeful they carry that on by getting the better of Montrose to reach the next week’s two-legged final.
He said: “Even in the 1-0 defeat to Raith, that was one of our most impressive performances of the season.
“We created so many chances that night. We were unlucky due to a worldie of a game from their goalie (Kevin Dabrowski).
“We have been better at home lately – and hopefully it stays that way.”
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