Craig Brown has done himself no harm in his attempt to secure the manager's job on a permanent basis so far and he now has another chance to endear himself to the Motherwell support. Even with Hately deputising at full back against Kilmarnock the defence looked solid and suddenly we were playing not only with commitment in the midfield but with a bit of pace and verve too.
It is of course easy to say that if we play like we did on Saturday we will surely have too much quality for a First Division side but we have been caught out like this before. Dundee, St Mirren and St Johnstone have all humbled us in very recent years and the list of cup humiliations from slightly further back quickly becomes extensive. If we are not at our best here in terms of attitude and performance, we will lose.
But, with the reward of a winnable tie in the last 16 dangling in front of us and Craig Brown seemingly having motivated the troops, perhaps it is time to be optimistic. Lasley and Coke should be confident of running the midfield while Sutton, O'Brien and Jutkiewicz should pose problems.
A big danger may be that we are tired from the efforts of Saturday while Inverness had another day off. Conversely they have struggled to get on the pitch recently so could be a little rusty - we must hope it is the latter!
It would be lovely to think we'll score a couple of early goals and make this an enjoyable and relaxed evening but it's not likely to happen. At least we can be hopeful of returning home with progress secured thanks to an edgy 1-0 win.