Two goals for James Keatings and Nikolay Todorov and goals from Tom Walsh and Shane Harkness helped Inverness CT to a 6-1 win against Forres at Mosset Park.
The club were playing two games at the same time and in the other match, ICTFC won 7-1 against Rothes thanks to two goals from Mitch Curry and Aaron Doran and goals from Shaun Rooney, Jordan White and Roddy MacGregor.
At Mosset Park, Nikolay Todorov gave the Caley Jags the lead after 19 minutes as he headed home an excellent cross from Tom Walsh.
James Keatings made it 2-0 just a minute later as he turned on the edge of the box rifled the ball into the the top corner.
Cammy Mackay was called into action as he kept out a shot from MacPhee from close range.
Keatings grabbed the third of the match and his second of the game before the break as he tapped in Nikolay Todorov low cross at the back-post.
Martin MacKinnon replaced Cammy Mackay at the break and five minutes after the restart Caley Thistle had their fourth of the match.
Tom Walsh was the scorer this time as he tapped in Kieran Chalmers cross at the back-post after it was missed by the Forres keeper.
Nikolay Todorov was denied as he saw his header saved as he met Tom Walsh’s cross in the middle.
Todorov did score one minute later as he headed in Tom Walsh’s cross from close range to make it 5-0.
ICTFC made a couple of changes as James Keatings and Donald Morrison were replaced by Shane Harkness and Gabriel Hastings.
Martin MacKinnon was called into action on the hour mark as he made a brilliant save to keep out Taylor for Forres.
Lewis Hyde then replaced Nikolay Todorov on the hour mark.
Forres got one back with around ten minutes left on the clock as Taylor converted form close range.
Caley Thistle did add another though late on as Shane Harkness met Tom Walsh’s cross in the middle to make it 6-1 to the Caley Jags
Post-Match Reaction: John Robertson
“It was a good run out for the guys this evening, we spoke to Forres as there was a wee bit of doubt about the fixture as they were struggling for players and after Saturday they were feeling down. We said to to Charlie [Rowley] we’d bring a few more of our younger players as we wanted an hour for most of the senior pros and we got that.”
“The game was played in an excellent spirit and I was happy with what I saw. I thought we were a wee bit sharper tonight which is what we wanted. We got a really good shift from the frontmen, they’ve all got on the scoresheet which is good. I was worried for Tom Walsh as he done everything but score but he got his reward for what was another excellent display as Scott Kellacher told me he was excellent against Clach”
“Todorov got another two, Keatings got another two, Curry got another two, Doran has got another two, White has got another one and MacGregor as well. So, the people who we want to score goals are scoring goals and that is what we are after.”
“I thought the young players were excellent tonight, we had flashes from Matheus [Machado], our young midfield players were fine, our young full backs were great. [Cameron] Harper looks an absolute star, he’s going to have to be patient with Carl Tremarco in front of him but it’s good because I think we have a stronger squad this year in terms of depth and the quality is there too.”
“Obviously now we step up in class, we are going to have three very tough games against Aberdeen, Hearts and St Johnstone but the players will go into them in good fettle. You saw tonight that a few started to feel fatigued as they’ve gone through a very tough pre-season and they’ve got 60,70 or 80 minutes from both games.”
Now, we’ll really bring the squad in and tighten it up a bit. It’ll probably be 45 minutes and 45 minutes against Aberdeen and the same against Hearts. Then we’ll look to tighten the squad up even more against St Johnstone.”
Injury update from Robbo
“Vincent just felt his calf at the end of last week and that this stage of the season we don’t want to take any chances, there’s no point. He’s been working in the gym and working with the physios so we’re hopeful that he’ll be back in full training by the end of the week and we can look forward to getting him involved in some of the games next week.”
“Sean Welsh and Daniel MacKay are at the stage where they seem to be doing a lot of straight line running with the physios which is good. At some stage they’ll do some shorter and more intense stuff before rejoining the group.”
“Sean was hugely influential for us last year but we don’t want to get to the stage where he wants to push it and he pushed it too far too quickly. I’d rather he was another week or ten days behind and he was 100% fit rather that him being 90% and he aggravates it.”
Reaction from Tom Walsh