Devine fumingwith referee

The City gaffer thought some of the decisions made by the Dungannon official were ‘ludicrous’ and he also felt that striker Michael Rafter should have had a penalty.

“I thought some of the decisions were absolutely ludicrous,” he insisted.

“I thought Michael Rafter had a stone wall penalty, I can understand that Rory Patterson’s wasn’t a penalty even though there was a slight touch on him, but at the same time all you want is a bit of fairness.

“I think if it had have been refereed in the proper manner tonight, I think we would be sitting here with a victory under our belt.”

The Brandywell out-fit broke the deadlock on ten minutes when Patterson’s long range free-kick seemed to catch out Drogheda goalkeeper Gabriel Sava.

Rafter and Barry McNamee also had chances to increase the hosts advantage, in fact Sava did well to keep out the Donegal midfielder’s effort, after he showed great skill to create himself an opening inside the area.

Unfortunately for the Candy Stripes early in the second half front man Declan O’Brien levelled things when a quickly taken throw caught out the City defence and the experienced striker made no mistake firing home past Gerard Doherty.

After that Mick Cooke’s side created a few half chances on the counter attack, but never really threatened the Derry net-minder, while at the other end a Patterson free-kick on the edge of the box was blocked.

Overall Devine was happy enough by his side’s score-draw and believes the tie is far from over and feels next Monday night’s clash at Hunky Dorys Park is going to be another close affair.

“I thought the boys did very well, they competed very well and had the best chances of the match.

“Michael Rafter has had a header in the first half from a corner that he probably would have scored another night, Barry McNamee has had a good chance their keeper has made a great save.

“I didn’t feel Gerard (Doherty) had that many saves to make in the match so in terms of chances created we created the better chances, but I was disappointed with the goal that we conceded.

“Defensively all night I felt we were very good and looked solid but we just switched off for a second from a throw in down the right hand side and we got punished.

“If you look at records last year we lost all three games against Drogheda but records go out the window when it comes to matches now and it all depends on the night and because of that I feel it’s still all to play for in the second leg,” concluded Devine.