CLIFTONVILLE boss Jim Magilton believes that European opponents Auda took lots of confidence ahead of their first leg meeting last week off the back of fellow countrymen RFS defeating Larne comprehensively in the Champions League. 

There was no repeat result as Cliftonville matched the Latvians in North Belfast but were outdone by two defensive errors in their 2-1 defeat last Wednesday evening. 

The Reds boss thinks his side did enough to cast some doubt at the midway point in the tie and believes they will have to put in a similar display when they travel to Riga this coming Wednesday (4pm kick-off) if they are to turn the tie around. 

“I think, probably the result against Larne, the Latvian team (RFS) that beat Larne 7-0 – I think that gave Auda lots of confidence coming into this game,” he suggested. 

“But I think that we definitely did enough to cast doubt, is it enough? We’ll see. Again, we’re going to have to show the same energy reserves that we did, and we have to be us with the ball.”

Magilton agreed that Auda held an advantage coming into the tie with their season in mid-flow and outlined his experience of working at Shamrock Rovers and their preparation for European encounters. 

“It’s massive, huge [Auda being midway through the season],” he agreed. 

“Fitness levels obviously tell, and they’ve got that competitive edge. I’ve been on the other end of that with Michael [O’Neill] at Shamrock Rovers where we were so, so fit. They stayed in the game, and we had really good players as well and the emphasis on the opposition was to come after us. There was a real determination, we knew that as the game wore on that we could really force the issue. 

“When you look at the League of Ireland, does that offer the opportunity for this league to look at that? I know there has been lots of conversations around it. Our lads have been in for six weeks, there is no excuse - you don’t get excuses from me. We’ve played lots of games and packed it heavy with games in preparation for this. 

“In terms of where we are at, I think we gave a really good account of ourselves. Me being me and nit-picking, the goals are absolutely awful and in between that we just have to have our belief and that will grow. It’s a new back five if you like, the front two haven’t played for a while. We’ll be hopefully ready for Wednesday.”

The Reds’ boss was more than happy with his side’s reaction to going behind in the first leg and rued being unable to exploit the Latvians deficiency at set-pieces.  

“The reaction was very good,” Magilton recalled. 

“We felt set-pieces are a threat with the quality we have. Having watched them, I felt that we had an opportunity with set pieces, and I felt we had opportunities if we crossed in good areas with the right sort of quality, I think we could have hurt them a little bit more than we did. 

“I think it’s just where we’re at, at the minute in terms of us and our levels, but in terms of their effort and their energy and what they gave, we couldn’t have asked of any more from them.”

Ryan Curran made his first start in almost 14 months out through injury in the first leg and lasted for an hour and Magilton felt that was amongst the positives to take. 

“When you look at all the positives, getting Ryan Curran back on the pitch was just huge,” he agreed. 

“To get him back in such a competitive game and for him to play for an hour was fantastic. He is a massive positive for us. Ryan Corrigan gets an opportunity to play his first taste of European football for the club. Those are the things that we’ll take from it, we’ll pick the bones out of it and then we’ll be ready for the next one.”

Ahead of Wednesday’s second leg, Magilton confirmed that Rory Hale will again miss out through an ankle ligament injury sustained their Charity Shield clash with Larne and expects the midfielder to miss the next few weeks.