Kilmarnock 3 - 6 Inverness CT: Clinical Caley knock Killie for six

IF THIS sounds like a close game then don’t be fooled. Inverness should have had seven or eight and could have had ten.

Inverness manager Terry Butcher had promised a performance and his boys delivered, the league’s basement side dominating from first to last, humbling their hosts. In 15 remarkable second-half minutes they scored four goals and could have had any number more.

With five goals between them, hat-trick man Andrew Shinnie and Gregory Tade, who claimed a second-half brace, fired the bullets, but they were handed the gun by a young Kilmarnock back four which simply fell apart after the break, with right-back Alex Pursehouse and central defender Momo Sissoko the most glaring offenders. Good as Inverness were, the day was dominated by Killie’s comedy defending, even if the home side’s manager, Kenny Shiels, struggled to see even a hint of black humour in this drubbing.

“It’s a hard one to take,” he said. “We’ve been playing quite well, but this was a freak day. Inverness beat us because they were better than us and because things fell into place for them, but were we naive? That’s a reasonable assumption. When we went behind we tried to chase the game, left holes at the back and got punished. This was a reality check.”

Although Inverness held the whip hand in the first half, there were only fleeting signs of the shellacking that was to be handed out in the second half. The first half actually ended on level terms at 1-1 and Kilmarnock even took the lead, albeit against the run of play, when Dean Shiels was put in on goal by a delightful back heel from Paul Hefferman.

Even then it was clear that the home side were struggling. Thistle started off brightly, bossing the early exchanges. Despite the Killie goal, the visitors always looked like the side most likely to score.

Within a couple of minutes of going behind they spotted a chink when nervous Killie keeper Anssi Jaakkola needlessly parried Greg Tansey’s long-range free-kick, and so they set about bombarding the Finn’s goal. Within a couple of minutes of his first fumble, the outstanding David Davis smacked a shot from outside of the penalty area, only for Jaakkola to flap at it again, this time parrying it straight into Richie Foran’s path, only for him to hit the crossbar.

An Inverness goal looked inevitable though. Shinnie pulled a shot wide from inside the box, and then Jaakkola made a superb double save from Richie Foran and Davis before the pressure began to tell.

Thistle would not be denied though, and moments after Sissoko put in a goal-saving tackle on Foran, the resulting corner was played short to Shinnie, who curled his shot into the far corner to level the scores.

If there had been few signs of the forthcoming second-half pyrotechnics, they began almost as soon as the match resumed. Inverness had already gone close twice when, just over five minutes into the second period, winger Jonny Hayes was given acres of space and time just outside the Killie box and rifled a low shot into the bottom corner of the net to make it 2-1.

Stung into action, Killie tried to chase the game. Little did they know, but the rout had begun. Meekings’ superb curling shot from the right was brilliantly saved by Jaakkola, but within moments Shinnie had claimed his second and Caley Thistle’s third after Pursehouse gave the ball away in the red zone and the striker fired a long-range shot past the Finn.

Shiels brought on James Dayton and David Silva for James Fowler and Liam Kelly, but things went from bad to worse as Tade ran from halfway before rounding Jaakkola to make it 4-1. With Inverness flooding forward, Killie were now in deep trouble.

Tade should have added another when clean through on goal, and then Shinnie made it 5-1, latching onto a through-ball from Davis. Tade made amends, claiming a second after a one-two with Shinnie went unchallenged by Killie.

The home side scored two late goals when Inverness relaxed and began to admire their own handiwork, Shiels scoring a penalty after Kenny Gillet brought down Dayton, and Hefferman scoring in the dying moments after a beautiful Sissoko through ball, but there was no disguising the enormity of the defeat.

“I’ve felt a result like this was coming,” said Butcher. “We were excellent in the second half, totally ruthless. I almost felt sorry for Kilmarnock.”