Better Luck Next Time

Martin Hardie: "We knew what was going to be required to beat Inverness and although it was a cup game we were in the mood to send out a signal.

Martin Hardie felt that his side failed to capitalise on the one man advantage after Inverness had gone down to ten men after half an hour of the Scottish Cup Fourth Round tie:-

"That is the strangest thing you ever see in football. A team gets a player sent off and somehow it reverts to them having possession. That was especially true in the second half. It is something that I cannot explain but it is just the way the game panned out. Sometimes you need to go across the park, try and kill it and let them do the hard work Celtic did that to us on Monday.

"We created chances in the first half and Barrowman scored with a tap in which for us is special since we have not had any like that this season. It is good for strikers to get these. We had counter attacks in the second half but chose the wrong pass at times."

Captain for the day, Martin claimed that the team was learning:-

"We have come up to the big boys league and the next four or five games will be key to determining where we end up at the end of the season."

Luck was going for the Pars in the first half with Caley keeper Jonny Tuffey's mistake to set up the free kick that Martin piled in and for Andy Barrowman to turn into the net.

"All the luck has been going against us. It is nice after the own goals that have gone in and shots coming off players, dipping off the goalkeeper and things like that. When I put the ball down for the free kick, it was very close and I thought to myself I will try and curl it in but then I thought the best thing I could do was just to smash it in front of the goalkeeper and just hope for the best.

"We only had one player - John Potter - back up the park so it was good for us that the keeper fumbled the save and we scored.

"We knew what was going to be required to beat Inverness and although it was a cup game we were in the mood to send out a signal. In our dressing and hopefully all the people at the Club know that we are a better team than Inverness."