FAI Cup second round
Derry City v St Patrick’s Athletic (Sunday, 6pm)
FOR the second year running, Derry CIty manager Ruaidhrí Higgins has to get his team up for a FAI Cup tie against St Patrick’s Athletic in the aftermath of European heartache.
The Candystripes suffered a 3-2 aggregate loss to Gibraltar part-timer’s FCB Magpies on Thursday night as their Europa Conference League adventure ended at the first hurdle
For Higgins, who was bitterly disappointed by the defeat to Magpies, insists a similar performance to the one which they produced against the Dubliners last year he would be happy with, but would obviously prefer a different outcome, as the visitors won on penalties before going all the way to claim the cup.
“We know that if we can repeat that performance that we put in against Pat’s last year then we give ourselves a really good chance,” he insisted.
“I actually felt that was one of the best performances that we put in during my time at the club and it was a sore one to take after going out a few nights earlier to Tobol.
“We need to stick together and when the players walk out the gate here tonight (Thursday), that they recover properly and use the pain as fuel for Sunday.”
The Foylesiders played the majority of Thursday night’s game with just 10 men after Adam O’Reilly’s first-half dismissal and Higgins knows that former Ireland boss Stephen Kenny will be rubbing his hands at the thought of his Saints side taking on a tired City team, who were taken all the way to extra-time in midweek.
“Of course there’s no getting away from it. The opposition on Sunday will be obviously using that and they will be smelling blood,” he explained.
“They’ll be coming here to have a go at it I imagine but I think we’ve shown the capacity over the years to recover well between matches.
“It’s a cup competition, you don’t get two bites at the cherry, you only get one, and we have to work extremely hard over the weekend in preparing the team and recovering properly and getting ready to go because we know we’re capable of going through if we replicate a lot of what we’ve done against Magpies.”
The 39-year-old wants his players to be fully focused and ready for Sunday’s task against the Inchicore men and he wants them to use the hurt of losing to Magpies to fire them up.
“A week or a couple of weeks is an extremely long time in football, as we’ve seen now at the minute but we just have to accept it, we have to take it on the chin,” he added.
“We should be going through this round but we haven’t and we have to get ready for Sunday, we can’t shy away, there’s no other way to deal with it.”
Elsewhere, Damien Duff’s Shelbourne travel to Bray Wanderers; Sligo Rovers host junior side Cobh Wanderers; UCD make the trip to Gorey Rangers; Wayside Celtic entertain Wexford and in the all-junior tie Ballyfermot face Leeds Cork.
