Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1 Aberdeen 3

Last updated : 18 October 2004 By Footymad Previewer

The landlord beat the tenants in the battle of the North thanks to two goals from Derek Adams and a penalty from Darren Mackie.

Adams' strikes, one of them a spot-kick, gave 'away' side Aberdeen, their first win in four games and sent them third in the SPL.

The game, which survived a late pitch inspection due to a persistent downpour of rain, started at a high tempo with the ball zipping about on the damp surface. In the early stages, it was Aberdeen who looked more the home side, although Caley did well restricting the Dons to shots from distance.

The first real chance took 15 minutes to materialise when Steve Tosh met a pass by Darren Mackie, but his wild effort flew over from ten yards.

Five minutes later, the Dons once again got in behind the Caley backline, when Tosh found Mackie out wide. The youngster's cross found Adams on the six-yard line, but his point-blank header was brilliantly pushed over by Mark Brown.

Undeterred by that miss, Adams soon made amends when he gave Aberdeen a deserved lead. A neat one-two between Adams and Chris Clark split open the Inverness CT defence and Adams showed quick feet to turn Stuart McCaffrey before firing the ball past Brown.

To their credit, Caley responded immediately to this setback and a fierce Stuart Golabek free-kick had to be tipped around the post by David Preece.

Spurred on by this effort, Caley continued to press forward and within five minutes had levelled the game. A flat header from Michael Hart fell to Roy McBain 25 yards from goal and he beat Preece with a low shot that clipped the post on its way in.

The second half was a drab affair, with the only goalmouth action coming from two penalty kicks both of which were awarded to Aberdeen.

The first was awarded on 62 minutes when a flick-on by Adams sent Mackie racing into the box. The pacy striker just got to the ball ahead of Brown who could only bring him down. From the resultant spot-kick, Adams confidently stepped up to place the ball past Brown who was only cautioned for the foul.

On 88 minutes, Mackie was once again brought down in the box, this time by Ian Black and he stepped up to score his first goal at Pittodrie in two years against the side he was on loan at last season.