Derry City assistant boss Alan Reynolds thoughts with manager Ruaidhrí Higgins and family after tragedy

Reynolds, who alongside Conor Loughery was in charge of the Candystripes at Carrick Rangers on Friday evening, insisted that things will continue to tick over until when Higgins wants to return to the dug-out.

"Look whenever the gaffer is ready to come in, that will be great, we all miss him and our thoughts are with him,” insisted Reynolds.

"It’s a really tough and horrendous time for him and family. We feel for him so much and lets be honest we probably could have done without coming here (to Carrick), the players were so down themselves, but I know that manager wanted us to play and that’s the reason we came.

"He knew that we needed the minutes in the players legs and he’ll be happy with us getting down here, playing the game and having no injuries.

“Look it has been a tough day for us, but we had a good work-out on the footballing side of things on Friday night, so we look forward to the week ahead.”

City conceded after just two minutes as Rangers striker James McLaughlin made no mistake from close range, but the Brandywell men drew level in the second half as substitute Cian Kavanagh headed home Michael Duffy’s corner.

"It was a great run-out for us, the pitch is really heavy and it was very hard to pass it on, but I just thought it was an excellent run-out for us,” added Reynolds.

"We needed it, you could see fellas were feeling it as the game was going on, I think the match will bring us on a lot. I was disappointed with the goal that we gave away. Then they just dropped off and I suppose it really was like an attack versus defence session for the remainder of the game.

"But overall it was a really good work-out for us, we got no injuries, which was a plus. Adam O’Reilly got some minutes, (Sadou) Diallo and (Will) Patching got 90 minutes, Mickey Duffy got close to 90 minutes, so yeah it was a good game for us.”