Calderwood relieved by cup success
07 Feb 2010 - 12:08:49
Conor Sammon opened the scoring inside the first half an hour at Rugby Park and Liam Kelly added a second before the interval and a third just before the hour mark.
But Calderwood believes that a memorable week, most notably last Tuesday's defeat of Celtic, took its toll on his players' performance.
He said: "It was never comfortable as we started at a slow pace and never really got out of that for the whole of the first half and I wasn't sure we were safe until there were five minutes to go.
"We looked flat after all the efforts on Tuesday and the players have had so many games in such a short space of time so I thought it looked a tired effort.
"I was very impressed with Inverness - they played well and I think that if they'd got the first goal it would have been very difficult for us to come back.
"Cammy Bell made a couple of wonderful saves, as he has done in the past couple of weeks when he's been fabulous; I thought Adam Rooney was magnificent up front for Inverness and that they played with vigour and we seemed to be second-best.
"We got our goals at the right times and kept a clean sheet in a game I can't say we played really well in, but it shows our players have character and that's the big thing for the weeks coming up.
"You could see in the lads that Tuesday was a hard one for us because of the pace Celtic played at and we never really got out of first gear today, but it's the end of a wonderful week and we're in the quarter-finals.
"You never know what can happen in this competition and I said to the players that they might only be two wins away from Europe."
Inverness counterpart Terry Butcher echoed Calderwood's sentiment that the scoreline was a harsh reflection on the First Division side, who came close to finding the net before each of the first two goals.
He also added further words of praise for Kilmarnock goalkeeper Bell, in particular for an impressive second-half save from Richie Foran.
Butcher said: "We ended up shooting ourselves in the foot three times to give Kilmarnock the win - 3-0 looks a very heavy scoreline but for anybody seeing the game, it wasn't a three-goal drubbing.
"If you defend like that and give away goals then you're never going to win football games, but they got the goals at the right times which lifted them and we had some great chances, especially just on the line when Dani Sanchez couldn't put it in and they broke away and scored.
"We started the second half really well and took the game to Kilmarnock, but then gave away a soft third goal against a team who are bang in form and confident.
"Cammy Bell was incredible today - the save he made was unbelievable, top-drawer, I was right behind it and Richie caught it sweet as a nut.
"He was determined to keep a clean sheet and that rubbed off on his defenders - although we haven't scored, we got in good positions and good efforts but haven't scored, and that's the story of our season.
"It's not nice to lose and go out of the cup, but we have a big promotion drive on and we're still on a good league run,
"Our players are a game bunch of boys who like to get forward and make chances; they know what they've done wrong but there isn't much of a gulf between the teams and we have to persevere and get there again."
