DAVIDSON SAYS TEAM BELIEF WILL BE PIVOTAL

Inverness Caledonian Thistle tapped into a bit of siege mentality before the first leg of the Premiership playoff.

Now St Johnstone are taking their shot before the second.

The Highlanders issued a long statement expressing their anger at Danny Devine and Wallace Duffy being suspended for Friday night’s game.

Ahead of tonight’s high stakes return fixture at McDiarmid Park, Saints boss Callum Davidson has got officialdom in his sights.

He was infuriated that there were two mistakes made by referee Bobby Madden and his assistants in allowing Reece McAlear’s first goal to stand when the visitors were 2-0 up and in cruise control.

And he wasn’t feeling any better about it two days later.

“When I watched the Rangers game against Hearts and the boy Nathaniel Atkinson got a head knock when Rangers were attacking and the game stopped, that made what happened on Friday worse,” he said.

“You get frustrated on the sidelines but it was a head knock and I’m sure the rules say a head knock, especially with both players down, it should be stopped.

“But the referee let the game go on and they scored and the boy was offside. It does infuriate you as it can be the turning point. It hasn’t ruined the tie but it would have put us in a stronger position.

“We can’t dwell on it but we can hope to get a couple of good decisions going for us in this game and it will even itself out. There’s belief in this group. They’ve seen a couple of bad decisions go against us.

“There’s that little bit of: ‘I tell you what, we’ve had a few unfair decisions but let’s use it as a positive – let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.’”