“The board are happy because we have made money from it, but I am a bit disillusioned at bringing in young managers and losing them after a couple of years,” said Bennett. “And I don’t see a Craig Brewster out there at the moment”. Bennett did not rule out Christie and Docherty as a long-term appointment. “If they keep going like that then why would you change it?” he asked. And he had a point. Inverness shone and Craig Dargo ’s double – 10 goals in 10 games for him – suggest Brewster’s loss on the field can be overcome.
Dargo, effervescent midfielder Ian Black and Mark Brown, the goalkeeper who laid the foundation for this win, would all improve Brewster’s new team but Bennett said that a “gentleman’s agreement” is in place that prohibits any players following their former manager, who bid them an emotional farewell yesterday before a game that was a fitting valediction. Brewster’s legacy is more than the fitness drive he promised and delivered. He leaves behind a team capable of slick interplay and one that also retains the physical toughness that took them through the leagues under Paterson and Robertson.
Livingston started well and the fluency of this play would have been rewarded but for a fine save from Brown. Paul Lambert shifted a free-kick to the left wing where Wesley Hoolahan was in space. The new signing from Shelbourne swung in a cross that met David McNamee’s run perfectly, but his powerful header was tipped over by the diving keeper. “It was the game’s turning point,” said Lambert afterwards, “a save he had no right to make.”
The longer the game went, though, the more the home side pushed back the men in gold. After 24 minutes Barry Wilson’s cross was deflected skyward and, as it looped over Roddy Mckenzie, the Livingston keeper stranded at his near post, Dargo moved in for the simplest of headers under the crossbar. As the ball dropped, though, the striker appeared to be wrestled to the ground by McNamee; what seemed a stick-on penalty and automatic red card was waved on by the referee.
Two minutes later, Dargo and Inverness got what was coming to them. Black picked up the ball on the right and beat Jason Dair by faking a cross with his right and switching feet. When it came over, his delivery was met by the diagonal run of Dargo, whose glancing header down to the bottom left corner gave him a ninth goal of the season.
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Three minutes after the goal, McKenzie came up with a brilliant save to deny Wyness. The striker showed off his shuffle, which gave him the space to hit a drive just inside the far post, from where it was rescued by the Livingston keeper, diving across his line.
Inverness were good for their lead at the break and probably worthy of their second goal, although it came from a dubious penalty call. Wilson did not quite have the pace to escape David Mackay down the inside left channel and the full-back seemed to come up with the ball after a sliding challenge. Maybe it was Wilson’s reaction, sinking to his knees with his arms flailing like William Defoe at the end of Platoon, that convinced the referee. Dargo took the penalty, striking it low to the bottom left corner.
Three minutes later Wyness added a third with a fierce finish, running past Roy McBain and onto his perfectly-weighted knockdown which he lashed high into the roof of the net with a left-footed half-volley.
Allan Walker, the Livingston substitute, shot wide with his first touch from 22 yards after the kind of break from midfield that his side were lacking prior to his introduction. Livingston’s only other resistance came from a Greg Strong header. That the centre-half had been posted up front at this point illustrates accurately their lack of punch. These two have fought it out in this fixture from the Third Division to the Premierleague. Right now, at least, Inverness are still on the rise.
STAR MAN: Ian Black (Inverness)
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Player ratings. Inverness: Brown 7, Tokely 7, Dods 7, Munro 7, Hastings 7, Wilson 7 (Proctor 82min, 6), Black 8 (Hart 75min, 6), Duncan 6, McBain 7, Wyness 7 (McAllister 69min, 6), Dargo 8
Livingston: McKenzie 7, Mackay 6, Pinxten 5, Strong 6, Dair 4, McNamee 6 (Walker 68min, 6), Brittain 5, Lambert 6 (Vincze h-t, 6), Hoolahan 6, Dalglish 4, Hislop 4 (Dorado 76min, 5)
Scorers: Inverness: Dargo 26, 57, Wyness 60 Booked: Strong 56 Referee: C Thomson
Attendance: 3,604