Ruaidhri Higgins left 'baffled' by 'mind-blowing' referee decisions as Derry City crash out of Europe

An extra-time goal from Gibraltar international midfielder Evan de Haro proved the decisive goal in the Uefa Conference League first round qualifier despite 10 man Derry battling back to level the tie with goals from Mark Connolly and Pat Hoban either side of half-time.

There was plenty of controversy on the night as Hoban had what Higgins described as a 'perfect goal' chalked off for a foul on Magpies defender Ash Taylor in the first half before Adam O'Reilly was harshly given his marching orders after a second booking for simulation.

Higgins felt 'gutted' afterwards and while he admitted the damage was done in the shock 2-0 loss in Gibraltar in the first leg last week, he was left scratching his head in disbelief at some of the 'baffling' game-changing decisions from Andorran referee Antoine Paul Chiaramonti who flashed an inordinate amount of cards on the night - 17 in total including O'Reilly's red!

"We shot ourselves in the foot last week and it cost us," reflected the City boss. "Obviously stuff went against us tonight which is mind-blowing. Really, really mind-blowing when you look at the incidents back.

"Last week I can't make any excuses for the performance - it wasn't good enough but this week I feel we've been dealt a really bad hand.

"I felt the key moment was not allowing Pat Hoban's goal. It was an absolutely perfect goal. If anything Ash Taylor has got a hold of Pat and not the other way around," argued Higgins.

"It's a perfect goal! It's a brilliant goal and it's an incredible decision. It's even worse when I saw it back. I felt at the time it was a perfect goal but I watched it back and I just can't see anything for him to give that.

"And the sending off, I'm not sure if it's a penalty but it's not a yellow card. He hasn't dived. There's some sort of coming together but it's definitely not a yellow card.

"I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. It's mind blowing [referee's performance]. But that can sound like sour grapes but if we're being really honest there's a couple of decisions that are just baffling.

"Even with 10 men we've had chance after chance. We had so many opportunities to get ourselves into the next round. It's very, very raw at the minute but ultimately we're out which isn't good enough.

"We let ourselves down last week and I felt we did enough tonight to get through the round but there were a few very strange decisions. We've had enough opportunities as well apart from that to win that game, six, seven, eight."

Derry had 20 attempts on Magpies goal on the night as they went out on the sword but Higgins admits it was a tie the Brandywell club quite simply should be winning.

When asked if it was his lowest point as manager of the club, he responded in the affirmative: "Absolutely! There's no getting away from that. I'm not going to sit here and say anything different.

"It's a real low point personally and for the club. It's a tie we should be winning. It's poor and there's no other way to do it but get on with it.

"We've gone out to a team we should be beating. Let's be honest. A fair bit of the damage was done last week but on tonight's performances we should've gone through but we didn't put the ball in the net when the chances presented themselves. The goal we conceded was poor and we're out and it's bitterly disappointing. There's no other way of describing it."

The hope is that his team can show resilience and display powers of recovery as they attempt to lift themselves for Sunday's FAI Cup second round visit of St Patrick's Athletic to Brandywell.

Last season Derry's European exit in the third qualifying round stage to Tobol was quickly followed by an FAI Cup second round defeat to St Pat's. Higgins is hoping it won't be a case of history repeating.

"This result will probably hurt badly for a long time internally but we don't have too much time to dwell on it because Sunday comes around very quickly.

"I think we have good people in the dressing room and good players with good character so I would hope that we can use the hurt of going out of Europe to make sure the rest of the domestic campaign is a positive one.

"It's gut-wrenching and it's hurting and will hurt for a long time I'm sure but resilience is a very important thing in sport and football and there's a lot of highs and lows and you just have to deal with it. We have an opportunity to go and put on a good display on Sunday."