You welcome GMA to the Bught on Sunday – how are you looking forward to the game?

I am looking forward to playing GMA, I think they’re a club that show great character and always give us a really tough game. We haven’t had many results in our favour this year so we are hoping to get a few points somewhere so hopefully we can make something out of this weekend. That being said there are zero easy games in this league so should be a good battle.

Your reserves of course won the Mowi Challenge Cup last season, and are going well towards reaching the final once again – how good was it for your youngsters to lift the trophy, and how can you see these youngsters helping Inverness in the long term?

I think as a club we have worked so hard to achieve a cup and the fact we had made the final 3 times before and had not won it, the girls were so determined to make it theirs. I myself had coached a lot of the girls when they were in primary school and it felt like as a club all the hard work had finally payed off. For a lot of these girls they are now cementing themselves into the first team which is not an easy thing to do, with the numbers going from 8 to 10 aside and with opposition who play faster and harder it can be a hard transition, but they are doing a fantastic job. I’m hoping these girls are striving to play first team shinty and push to have the success they saw with the second team become reality for the first team as well.

Looking towards the Valerie Fraser, you face Lochaber in the Quarter Finals – a tough test, but how will you work towards setting up for the game?

I think any team we were going to face would be a challenge, I think with the new league structure it’s shown that any team is not an easy game. If we can go into the game with the attitude of striking first, we have a chance of causing an upset, that being said I’m sure Lochaber are hoping to bring the Valerie Fraser back 2 years in a row and will definitely be up for the game. As a club we need to be up for this game and have the drive of wanting to be beating the teams at the top.

The Bught Park renovation is rapidly nearing completion – how are ISC looking forward to taking custody of the home of shinty?

I think we’re all excited to have a home again, we have felt a tiny bit homeless. It’s the simple things like arriving to a game and having no changing rooms that can really hinder game preparation. The attitude in the changing room is so often talked about within sport, but for us we haven’t had a changing room since COVID, and I do think this has made a impact on our performance as a team. On the plus side it’s very thrilling to see shinty grow so much within the last 10 or so years I’ve been at the club and I’m hoping that the renovation will provide even more opportunities for people to become involved with the sport. Awareness really helps create an atmosphere around the sport and hopefully it can create some excitement and interest from both locals and visitors that can help grow shinty.