It may have taken penalties to decide it, but Livingston advanced into the next round of the SPFL Trust Trophy after a difficult 90 minutes against Duncan Ferguson’s men.

As Inverness approach a week of uncertainty with administration appearing to be looming on Wednesday, they produced a battling performance against the Championship outfit at the Set Fare Arena.

Inverness got off to a bright start with Billy MacKay being allowed a decent shot from the edge of the box early on which never caused goalkeeper Marcelo Pitaluga any problems.

But they broke the deadlock after 10 minutes when Luis Longstaff’s cross from the right wing found the head of Paul Allan unchallenged from eight yards out to nod home to give the visitors the lead.

The lead only lasted seven minutes when Scott Pittman charged into the Inverness half before setting up Stevie May on the edge of the box who fired past Jack Newman.

The hosts went in front in the 28th minute when May played provider when his cross into the six yard box found the head of Pittman to nod home.

But an instant reply saw Inverness level as a corner kick saw a scramble in the six-yard box and Charlie Gilmour got the shot to fire home with the teams going in level at half time.

Inverness started brightly in the second half with Adam Mackinnon seeing two efforts blocked by the Livingston goalkeeper before Longstaff saw his shot cleared off the line.

Mackinnon had another great chance midway through the second half when he got on the end of a Bray cross from the right wing. But from 12-yards out, he could only fire over the bar.

Newman did well to keep Inverness in the match when he produced a great save to deny Liam Sole’s shot finding the net.

Neither team were able to find a winner before full time as the match went straight to a penalty shoot-out.

Each team scored their first four penalties with Jake Davidson, Charlie Gilmour,Remi Savage and Billy Mckay scoring for Inverness. Robbie Thompson saw his spot-kick saved by Pitluga. Stephen Kelly then scored the winning penalty to send Livingston into the quarter finals.

Match report: Will Clark

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