Derry City fall at the first hurdle in Europa Conference

Derry City's Europa Conference League campaign ended at the first hurdle, as some Brazilian magic from Gabriel Ramos sealed the tie for Riga.

The big midfielder, who scored the opener at the Brandywell last week, netted a brace at Skonto Stadium.

For City boss Ruaidhri Higgins, he will be a frustrated man as his side had enough chances in the opening 30 minutes to get back into the encounter, but he will also admit that his team were just second best throughout both legs.

Derry started on the front foot and they went close after just four minutes as Will Patching's right wing corner found Cameron McJannet, but his close range strike was blocked by team-mate James Akintunde. Soon after Patching again was in the thick of things, this time feeding Danny Lafferty, but from an acute angle the left wing-back saw his strike hit the side netting.

The Brandywell men continued to push forward and they should have broken the deadlock on 17 minutes as Brandon Kavanagh's lovely through ball released Akintunde, but with only Riga goalkeeper Nils Purins to beat, the striker dragged his shot wide.

Riga slowly started to get into the game and took the lead on 33 minutes as left-back Glody Ngonda got in behind, before picking out Ramos and he fired home into the roof of the net.

The home side missed two super chances to double their lead with City keeper Brian Maher making a top save to deny Mikael Soisalo and Oleksandr Filippov fired wide moments later when well placed inside the box. The woodwork came to the home side's rescue on 55 minutes when some neat passing by Derry ended with Patching's curling strike, which had Purins beaten, rattle the crossbar.

Higgins made a double change on the hour mark with Jamie McGonigle and Evan McLaughlin