Following the game, Head Coach Jimmy McNulty explained the reasons behind their absence.
“Aaron picked up a muscle injury in training, which was unfortunate,” confirmed McNulty.
“He wasn’t able to travel with us. Hopefully, it’s a short-term, not a medium-term one. It’s a minor tear of the muscle and we hope to have him recovered within a two-week period. It’s a loss of course.
“Kyle couldn’t travel today because he was ill yesterday, which just got worse throughout the day and he was suffering with that.
“Dan Sassi was also hurt today and had to come off late on. He had a muscle problem which is a concern, in an area that we’re already quite thin in. We’ll have to dress that down as quickly as possible and look what we need to do moving forward.”
There was more positive news on the injury front, with the return of goalkeeper Luke McNicholas to the matchday squad after two weeks out.
“That was good. He’s only just started training, so the medical team said he definitely wasn’t fit enough to play [start], but he was fit to maybe feature late on if anything happened to our goalkeeper.
“I’m not so sure that would have been the case early on, but he wanted to join the bench. We’re very happy to have him back.
“He made such a promising start for us and was a big part of the defensive solidity, along with the guys in front of him, so to have him back fit and ready to make an impact is really good.”
