Derry City’s Ruaidhrí Higgins warns players to show no signs of snobbery ahead of UCD game

​Higgins also insists he remembers during his playing days in 2006, two results stand out to him, which denied Stephen Kenny’s side the treble that season.

“I remember back in 2006, we lost the treble on goal difference,” he insisted.

“We drew at home to UCD and lost at home to Waterford, Vinny Sullivan scored and Waterford hadn’t won in so many games and they came up to the Brandywell beat us 1-0 and those results cost us.

“So it’s really, really important to remember that these types of games are big and I don’t want anyone turning up to the Brandywell thinking that this is going to be a foregone conclusion. All I’ve heard since Monday night is that the expectation about Friday night’s game is a foregone conclusion and it’s far from it as far as I’m concerned.

“People would think that Dundalk and Bohemians would be up around the top end of the table and UCD have taken points off both of them.

“They drew at Oriel Park on the opening night and they drew recently at home to Bohemians. Shelbourne beat them 1-0 and they’ve been in really good form and I know that was an extremely tight game as well.

“No one is really putting them away, so we can’t approach the game with any snobbery, because we’re not in a position to approach any game with snobbery.”

Derry go into tomorrow evening’s clash with the chance for the first time since last year to win three matches in the space of a week.

“We haven’t won Friday, Monday and Friday since April last year and that’s the only time we’ve done that, so that’s a big incentive and we need to keep winning matches. It's as simple as that,” he added.

“We’re in a good vein of form and if we’re professional and if we do what we’ve been doing in recent weeks in terms of our application to the game then we can get a good result, but if we don’t then it can be a long night for us, but hopefully we can put three points on the board, that's the goal and that’s what we have to try and do, but for me it’s a very dangerous game.

“We need noise in the ground, we need players to bring energy on the pitch and together if we bring those two then we can win the game.”

Higgins also confirmed that centre-back Shane McEleney is extremely doubtful to face the Students because of a hip flexor issue, which he suffered in Monday evening’s win over Dundalk.

“Shane’s not ruled out at the minute but he has a hip flexor problem,” he added.

“He hasn’t ruled himself out, so we’re going to wait until closer to kick-off to see if he makes it. But the rest of the squad will probably be the same as Monday night.”