Ruaidhri Higgins urges Derry City players to 'come out fighting' against Bruno's Magpies

​Derry City overcame a 5-3 first leg loss at the hands of FK Lyn of Oslo in 1965 with a 5-1 drubbing of the Norwegians at Brandywell to become the first Irish team to progress through a round in Europe!

No Irish club has ever managed to reverse a 2-0 first leg defeat in European competition since but Higgins certainly hasn't given up hope of progressing to a Uefa Conference League second round tie with Copenhagen.

The City boss, who stood apologetic in front of the travelling support and took 'deserved' criticism on the chin at the Europa Point stadium last week, is confident his team can right the wrongs of Gibraltar.

And he's called on the Brandywell support to get fully behind his team and roar them over the line on what's expected to be a thrilling night on Foyleside.

"I've absolutely no doubt we can do something pretty special and overturn it and create another big night at the Brandywell," said Higgins. "That's what we want to do.

"We know the prize at stake. We've given ourselves work to do, there's no doubt about that but it's certainly something we won't shy away from and certainly something that's achievable."

Reproducing the type of performance and atmosphere at the Lone Moor Road venue that got the team over the line in a 5-4 aggregate win against Finnish outfit KuPS last year, is what Higgins is hoping for.

"It's one of the noisiest that I've ever seen the Brandywell, that second half against KuPs where the crowd dragged us over the line," he recalled.

"I get that there will be a bit of frustration from the first leg but we need everyone on Thursday night. Hopefully we can reproduce that performance in an atmosphere like that one."

And he's witnessed the type of response in training he was expecting after that frustrating first leg display.

"Obviously everyone was hurting after last week and rightly so," added Higgins. "There would need to be something wrong with you if you weren't feeling pain from the result.

"We've been in all weekend, Saturday and Sunday and to be honest Sunday was probably the best training session we've had all year. It was on the money.

"Every single player that was on the pitch trained at a really high level and if that's anything to go by then the signs are good leading into this week."

The importance of getting through a round in Europe certainly isn't lost on Higgins or his squad.

"It's extremely important. You're representing not only the club and the city but the league as well. It's really important financially as well for the club that we give something back.

"We put ourselves in a position where we need to come out fighting and pull our sleeves up. Football is all about resilience and if you can show a high level of resilience it gives you a real opportunity and I hope we can see that in our performance on Thursday."

Derry will need to be at their prolific best in front of the posts but form at Brandywell has been impressive of late.

"We've shown with our home form this year that, with the crowd behind us, we can win matches and win them well.

"It's going to be far from easy. They're a good side. They're streetwise, they're clever but we have the capabilities to cause them real problems and I hope we see that on Thursday.

"We have to overturn a two goal deficit and in European fixtures that's not easy but if you look at our recent home form in the league, in our last four games we've scored 12 goals so we're scoring goals at home and creating chances and we'll need to do that again if we're to go through. That will be our intention.

"That doesn't mean we have to score in the first five or 10 minutes. We obviously want a fast start but if it takes to the 90th or 95th to get ourselves in a good position then that's what it is.

"We have to be patient but with urgency and try to create and score goals but also we must be mindful that they have one or two threats on the counter attack as well.

"The players look up for it. I'm sure the opposition will feel they have the job done but it's up to us to try and show them that they haven't.

“It will be a very interesting game. I know the Ryan McBride Brandywell Stadium at the minute is a really difficult place to come to."