Five of The Terrace Podcast crew pick their favourite moments from Inverness’ historic victory over Celtic in the Scottish Cup. And no, Josh Meekings’s arm does not appear.
Craig Fowler
My favourite moment from Inverness’ historic win over Celtic was a goal that wouldn’t even prove to be the winner, though it certainly looked that way at the time.
Edward Ofere had a great game overall. He made a real nuisance, linking well with teammates both in the sense of holding play up and contributing to the overall flow of their passing game. The only thing missing was a goal after he wasted three great chances in normal time. Under normal circumstances a player in his situation – only his third start since joining Inverness, playing in such a pressure cooker atmosphere – would have bottled it when the ball rolled in front of him. Instead he set himself up and showed great confidence to fire it into the back of the net.
Then came his celebration. He tore away screaming at the heavens as if he was a born and bred Highlander who’d dreamed about one day scoring such a momentous goal. It was an example of the opportunities Scottish football can give players. A couple of months ago he didn’t even have a club. Now Ofere has contributed to the biggest win in Inverness’ history, and he could forever make himself a legend if he does it again on a winning team in May. And despite his unfamiliarity with the club prior to his move, you could tell that meant the world to him.
As Tony mentioned on the podcast on Monday, a real quality about Scottish football is how guys can come from obscurity and forever remain heroes to thousands of fans. And yet some people think this is a bad thing. How?
Gary Cocker
My favourite moment was Andy Walker’s seethe when Craig Gordon was sent off. I’ve never been a fan of Walker’s commentary, or Sky’s coverage of Celtic ga- sorry, Scottish football in general, but this one took the biscuit. Gordon wiped out Watkins and had to go, but Walker wailed that it was a “triple punishment” as if McLean should’ve taken this into account rather than the rules of the game. Also I fail to understand how it’s a triple punishment anyway. It’s a red card and a penalty. What’s the third one? It can’t be a goal because if Greg Tansey doesn’t score then the penalty isn’t a punishment.
Anyway, I’m as big a fan of Gordon and his comeback from injury as the next guy, but suggesting he should get special treatment as Walker seemed to do is ludicrous. It took the former Celtic player (you’d never guess) less than 10 seconds after the final whistle to skate over Caley’s magnificent performance to slip back into seething at the officials. There’s no doubt that mistakes were made, but as Celtic fans are fond of saying, they even themselves out over the course of a season….
Joel Sked
This was another in a line of recent epic Scottish Cup semi finals with a number of talking points and incidents to get excited about, but my favourite aspect of the match was Marley Watkins’s battle with Celtic’s centre back pairing, especially Virgil van Dijk. We have become accustomed to van Dijk simply strolling through matches; too strong, too quick and too good for his opponents. The only player to have really spooked him domestically has been Adam Rooney and Watkins delivered a performance that would have delighted the Aberdeen hitman.
The only thing missing from his performance was a goal but he was heavily involved in two of the three scored by ICT as well as ‘putting the shitters up’ van Dijk and Jason Denayer. It was an old-fashioned number 9 display from Watkins. Van Dijk, perpetually calm and composed, essentially lost the rag as his demeanour and attitude throughout the game was of someone not getting his way.
Watkins chased every ball, used his body effectively and really muscled his way into the game and van Dijk out of it. It was a great decision from John Hughes to push Watkins higher up the pitch compared to the previous weekend’s fame against Celtic. The Celtic backline were left flustered and you could see his influence in Edward Ofere’s goal. A simple cross that would usually get cleared easily was left to drop off Watkins into Ofere’s path.
It is always comforting that simple tenacious forward play can make even the best defenders look like they are more used to wearing the black and white top of St Mirren.
Duncan McKay
Unfortunately, I only viewed this match via Twitter, The Terrace WhatsApp group and latterly the highlights on the BBC. It was gratifying to see Ryan Christie perform on such a big stage and he’s continues to look like a player with huge potential but my favourite moment from the match was the reaction to Edward Ofere’s extra time goal on the Inverness bench. As most of the substitutes, manager and background staff went absolutely wild, one man remained poised and in control – Russell Latapy.
Looking like a man who’s seen the sights of the world in football, Latapy just smiled and not for the first time, looked like the coolest man in Hampden.
Tony Anderson
So many incidents to choose from in a wonderful game that will rightly go down as a Scottish Cup classic.
I’ll have to be obvious, though, and go for the winning goal. No matter what, a team scoring a goal that means they will qualify for their first ever Scottish Cup final would always be special, but the sheer quality of it was just a joy to watch; fantasy football stuff from Graeme Shinnie n co.
We will never know if Shinnie noticed David Raven or if he was just putting a ball across goal in hope. That doesn’t matter, though. To cut open a mean Celtic defence with such quick, penetrative passing that any team would be proud off was a great way to seal it. Plus Raven had been getting forward regularly and was in the box on many occasions after his direct opponent James Forrest had been sacrificed for Lukasz Zaluska. So even if Shinnie didn’t see him, I reckon he had faith the big man would be steaming in at the back post. Having trust and faith in your team mates epitomises everything ICT have done over the last few years with a core squad of players. This moment demonstrated that to the watching world.
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