IF SATURDAY was a day to forget for Morton, it was one for the modern scrapbook for teenager Reece McAlear.
The 19-year-old on-loan Norwich midfielder will add his first senior goal – the pick of the goals on offer at Cappielow on Saturday – to his YouTube clippings but the ambition now is that it is the opening montage to his professional showreel.
His goal, Inverness’ fourth of the day, ensured there would be no hopes of Morton staging what had always looked like an unlikely comeback after a shocking opening half left them three goals down. Gozie Ugwu’s penalty on the cusp of the break afforded a glimmer of light that was quickly expunged by another rampant second-half display from Billy Dodds’ side.
“That’s my first goal is senior football and it was good to get it as I’ve come close in the last few weeks,” said McAlear.
“I just saw the ball come to me and one of their players has come towards me, I’ve touched it to the side and then just shot and hoped for the best.
“Hitting it into the top corner is not a bad way to score my first goal, it’s alright isn’t it but I’m just happy to get the win.
“The goal will probably be on my YouTube clips and hopefully it will be the first of many.”
The result keeps Inverness top of the Championship with their noses just in front of Raith Rovers whose form this term has been impressive.
Having gone out of the Scottish Cup last week to the Greenock side among much fury over the state of the dressing room, there was a sweetness to the result for the Highlanders.
But aside from any lingering bad feeling the afternoon was about the ambition of Inverness to get themselves back into the top flight.
“Yes, I think you could say it [fired us up] but at the end of the day you need to go and do it and we did. Hopefully we can keep going and go next week again,” said the midfielder.
“I think you could say that it fired us up but we needed to put that behind us and focus on the game and we went and won and did our business on the pitch.
“The gym was a bit better to get ready in.
“A performance like that builds confidence in yourself and the team. As we were beaten by them on Tuesday, it was good to then beat them in the league.
“We were ruthless and I think we’ve missed that in previous games but here we showed we can score goals.
“I think some people outside of football have underrated us but we’ll just keep working away quietly and show on the pitch that we’re good enough.”
A Jack Hamilton own goal had started the rout before Shane Sutherland netted a double with further goals coming from Billy Mckay, McAlear and sub Lewis Jamieson. For McAlear it is about making the most of the loan deal.
“I just want to keep learning and play as many games as I can,” he said.
“When the gaffer phoned me about coming on loan he spoke about how he wanted me to play and that suited me as well. So I just came up here and I’ll try to play as many games as I can.
“From when I was younger I remember Inverness being in the Scottish Premier League and that gave me a bit of motivation to come up. It’s also away from home, so no distractions.
“I’ll just try my best here and try to get Inverness back to the Premiership.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here