Inverness CT 0 - 1 Falkirk: Highland fling ends with a fall

THE scenes are always the same. So it was at the Caledonian Stadium when distraught losing players sprawled themselves across the turf as jubilant opponents danced and jigged nearby. Yet, somehow the relegation ignominy Inverness suffered at the hands of a Falkirk side who freed themselves from that fate seemed cruel to the point of being excessively so.

A month ago it was all the rage to gush over the resurgence at the Highland club under Terry Butcher. A month ago, it was fashionable to damn John Hughes and his team for the desperate straits they had found themselves in. The turnaround the top-flight's escapees effected in the post-split games is a tribute to the backbone of the Falkirk manager. But the pull in the opposite direction suffered by Inverness is not a condemnation of Butcher's work, and that of his assistant Maurice Malpas. Their team lost and were demoted on goal difference because they were reduced to ten men after losing defender Ross Tokely to a red card in the 38th minute. It handed Falkirk the initiative that, until then, they never looked like grasping.

The sending off was instrumental in the ability of Hughes' side to begin imposing themselves and that culminated in Michael Higdon's 68th-minute lifesaver. Three minutes after the gangling striker had lopped on to the park, he was set up by a cross from the right by Jackie McNamara, and the forward slid in to divert the ball over the line with his hip, leg, or something, as he said later. On such contacts club histories turn. From that point, Scottish Cup finalists Falkirk were a team transformed from the side that for all the world looked lost to the top league when lashed 2-0 by St Mirren a week ago.

Inverness threw everything at them and Russell Duncan and Dougie Imirie passed up manna-from-heaven late openings. It wasn't enough, but though it was Butcher's team that lost, it really wasn't his team who were relegated – it was Craig Brewster's side. In his 15 games in charge, Butcher has harvested 20 points – three more than his predecessor accumulated in the previous 23 games.

The 1.5 million hit that the demoted club will now take on the chin as they deal with having 16 players out of contract could leave Scotland's top-flight without a team from the region for some years to come.

Not that Tokely, his voice cracking with emotion, would accept that. It took more than a century for Inverness to become the first Highland team to play at the top level. The defender, with more than a decade service to the club, believes they did so with distinction and will do again.

"We have enjoyed the past five years, beaten Celtic and Rangers, as teams like Falkirk would love to do, and have been a credit to the league," he said. "This club has always had success and I'm sure we'll come back." Tokely admitted he felt "sick to the stomach" at having to watch the second half in the dressing room.

He did so with Roy McBain, substituted in a re-jig following the dismissal. The absence of the pair meant Inverness were without any of those who gained the club SPL promotion at the same ground in 2004.

Tokely believes there was little justification for his removal, the product of catching Steve Lovell with his arm to send him turfwards as the striker sought to dart on to a ball chipped over the Inverness man's head just outside the box. It looked harsh at the time, with Lovell giving it big licks, but TV replays seemed to confirm that referee Eddie Smith made the correct decision as the forward would have had a clear sight of goal. "I don't think I touched him, I think he went down a bit easily," said the player, who confessed he found it "very hard to come in here and talk to you guys."

Butcher said later that he had to remove Tokely's tie and shoelaces "in case he hanged himself from the stand" such was the player's devastation. The disbelief from the Inverness manager was that "it was all going to plan – then bang!". He cursed that the reverse condemned his team to their first back-to-back defeats under him, and that it put them bottom "for the first time in months".

"Had we been down with seven or eight games to go it would have been bad, but we were so close, have given everything and haven't been helped by anyone."

Butcher's side made enough of the running in the initial stages to have their fans feeling frisky. It was curious, indeed, that they showed the real eagerness of the two sides when it was their opponents who had to score or else the First Division would beckon. It looked as if it might be starting to call when Richie Foran was played in seven yards from goal in the 12th minute. With the goal at his mercy, he placed an effort that Dani Mallo miraculously saved.

Butcher was hacked off that a push on Foran in the box went unpunished in the second half but that seemed like straw- clutching. Now he must clutch to the hope the club can enjoy a quick return, something he acknowledges won't be easy. "The future is good as far as we are concerned," he said. "The board have been very good to me in terms of saying 'right we want to bounce back and you can get some players in and look and this and look at that'. There is going to be great competition in the First Division with Dundee (having] money and Queen of the South, Partick and others and we will be a scalp."

The Inverness manager was magnanimous enough to wish his destroyers Falkirk every success in scalping Rangers in next week's cup final. "It is such a pity that it came down to our two clubs because both are progressive, both give youth a chance, both are well run and home to really good people.

"John Hughes and Brian Rice are fantastic, real good football people, but one of us had to go down and that's just how it is." It just never feels how it should be when the vanquished are valiant.

Hughes reflects on a 'right good' season

A WHOLLY relieved Falkirk manager John Hughes was able to ruminate on his team "coming through the mire" after the Inverness win that allowed them to avoid falling out of a top flight they had seemed incapable of gaining a foothold in not so long ago. Victory yesterday meant Hughes, the subject of a letter from supporters' trust members demanding his removal a month ago, could subtly remind critics just how acceptable the campaign has proved to be.

"We reached the League Cup semi-final, we are in the final of the Scottish Cup, which we have a chance of winning and we are tenth in the SPL", he pointed out. "So there is a chance of this being a right good season for Falkirk. I have to give a special mention to Brian Rice, my No 2. He has stood strongly by my side for the last six years. The players have a tremendous amount of respect for him and I have to say that one's for him."

Hughes said he hopes the cash generated from the cup runs will be ploughed back into the squad next year and said he and his players would gain from the experience of starting at the edge of the precipice and clawing their way back.

At full-time, there was no public show of glee from a man renowned for giving free rein to his feelings. "In victory and defeat, you must be gracious," he said, on several occasions offering his commiserations to Inverness. "I stood at the end of the tunnel and shook everyone's hand. You have to control your emotions."

Michael Higdon rated his match- winner the most important goal of his career. The forward, an inspired substitution who arrived on the field only three minutes before his decider, admitted the win will make the cup final build-up all the easier. "We are going to be relaxed all week," said the player, who will spend the early part of the week at Sunderland's training ground with the rest of the Falkirk squad. "It would have been hard to lift us and I'd have hated to hear what the manager had to say to us all week if we hadn't stayed in the league."

MAN OF THE MATCH

Falkirk keeper Dani Mallo pulled off a wonderful save to deny Richie Foran early on. Mallo's assurance in handling whatever came his way during Inverness's late rally was crucial in his team holding on for the win that secured their SPL status.

QUICK FACT

Demoted Inverness have never won a game in which Eddie Smith has been their referee

TALKING POINT

Falkirk now become a potentially far more dangerous Scottish Cup final opponent than if they had been condemned to the First Division. The outcome in the Highlands could provide the making of a fascinating occasion at Hampden on Saturday.