Derry City face an uphill task to progress as Riga FC emerged from the Brandywell with a hard-fought 2-0 win.

Riga’s top scorer, Gabriel Ramos opened the scoring shortly before halftime before the game transcended in a matter of second-half minutes. Matty Smith was harshly red-carded for a push and Oleksandr Filippov doubled both Riga’s advantage and Derry’s gloom.

The Brandywell was packed to the rafters for the visit of the Latvian outfit and Derry began, feeding off the energy. Joe Thomson, especially, put himself about in the early stages, his fierce pressing initially getting the better of Douglas Aurielo in Riga’s midfield.

Ruaidhri Higgins had received a welcome boost in being able to call upon the fit-again Ronan Boyce and Eoin Toal in defence. Although, it was at the attacking end that Toal was first involved, heading a Will Patching free-kick not far wide.

As Riga began to play, their threat vastly increased. And before the break, they struck. Left-back Glondy Ngonda’s flighted pass sent Filippov skedaddling into the area and doing tremendously to chip it in, which was clinically converted by Ramos, a beautiful strike on the volley.

Boyce was forced off by injury, but Higgins made an attacking change, sending Ryan Gartside on for his Derry debut. And the former Longford Town man was lively in attack before the game-changing minutes.

In the sixty-fifth minute, Ngonda and Smith exchanged handbags before Smith was shown a red card for presumably what was a push, spotted by the linesman. A harsh decision perhaps but also rather reckless from Smith to give the referee a choice at all.

Riga wasted no time utilising their extra man, Aurielo, a youngster at Sporting Lisbon, oozed his quality. His weavy dribble down Derry’s left was cut back and Filippov had a tap-in.

The Candystripes, sucker-punched, were unable to muster much in the final twenty minutes and indeed Filippov almost trebled Riga’s lead with a shot that cannoned off the crossbar in injury time.

Derry now have it all to do.