Gavin Cooney

DERRY CITY MANAGER Ruaidhri Higgins is refusing to give up on the league title, despite last night’s 1-0 loss to Tallaght, which leaves his side seven points behind Shamrock Rovers with 13 games to go. 

Higgins was frustrated by the lack of end product in Derry’s play as they failed to convert possession into any meaningful chances, sorely missing the injured trio of Michael Duffy, Patrick McEleney, and Will Patching. 

“We’ve got 39 points to play for, it’s an uphill task”, said Higgins.  “We’ll try and pick up as many points as we can. There’s still so much to play for, we’re not writing ourselves off whatsoever because I know that when we get a wee bit of luck in terms of fitness, we can go on an outstanding run. We’ve Europe and the FAI Cup around the corner.

“I don’t know what would do it but we would need to put a really outstanding run together, there’s still plenty of football to play. Every game that goes by where we don’t pick up three points, it puts more pressure on you. We need to get key personnel on the pitch.

“Mark Connolly has started eight games out of 23, Cameron Dummigan has started six out of 23, Patrick McEleney has started 10 out of 23, Michael Duffy has started 11 out of 23, that’s four of the best players in the whole country and for us to do anything and to try and win league titles, I don’t know any team around anywhere that can deal without four or five of their best players. Do I feel we’re far off? No I don’t, but they are seven points clear and that’s the difference. Rory Gaffney gets a sniff and they’re in the back of the net.” 

Derry are also likely to further strengthen their squad ahead of the season run-in along with the Europa Conference League first round qualifier against HB Torshavn next month, with Paul McMullan already signed from Dundee and set to be available to face Sligo Rovers on 7 July. 

“He’s an exciting talent, a brilliant lad and the type of player our fans will love watching. Against Rovers on Monday, we lacked that bit of devilment or craft in the final third that gets you results at these type of places.

“We’re looking at players for this upcoming window. We’ve added McMullan, another is pretty imminent and then we’ll try to add another. God knows, one or two will want to move but because we’re down on numbers, nobody can leave at the minute.”

Rovers manager Stephen Bradley, meanwhile, praised his side for showing their grittier virtues in closing out a vital three points, three days after Rovers let a two-goal lead slip in drawing with Bohemians. 

“It was a really, really important three points”, said Bradley. “We had to show different sides to us. When we played Derry here earlier in the year, we were brilliant in every department, completely dominated the game and lost the game. Tonight was a different performance from us. Were we at our best in possession? Obviously we weren’t. But I still feel we had the best chances in the game, I don’t think they created anything of note, really. They crossed the ball from deep but there was nothing that really worried us in that regard.

“If you want to be successful you have to have different facets to how you play and different characteristics. Tonight we were very good in our defending aspect. At times in the first half we were a little open, but second half was good, distance was good. With those three centre halves, we will defend crosses all day and we did that really well.” 

Bradley confirmed Jack Byrne is fine having been taken off with a knock, while he is optimistic that the hamstring injury with which Neil Farrugia was forced off in the first half is not serious. 

“We hope he’s okay. He knows his body now, he doesn’t think it’s too bad, either does the doctor. We will get him scanned tomorrow just to be sure, but Neil is the type, if he’s unsure he will take himself out. It’s the right call. Jack is fine, and we are hoping Neil isn’t too bad.”