IT WASN’T exactly rip-roaring, edge-of-the-seat, gung-ho stuff, but in a sense, that was the whole point. Damn the knockers who never see the sky over an “Irish” ground, never mind, Shelbourne, the champions of Ireland, did themselves and the National League proud again. Domestic football fans can hold their heads a little higher still this morning.

Patience was the night’s main virtue. Shels daren’t risk throwing more than one striker forward, as they sought to negate one of the class acts from the best league in the world by narrowing the pitch to Tolka’s dimensions, and by crowding midfield and the Spaniards’ midfield-heavy system.

However fleetingly, this is the big time. That familiar Uefa signature tune, which we normally only hear via our TV screens, was confirmation of that. If qualifying for the Champions League group stages is conservatively worth an estimated €10 million to Shels, one could possibly double that, and add more, for last season’s semi-finalists.

Best to be safe rather than leave themselves open to a Dublin mugging, and a scoreless stalemate won’t have displeased them greatly. Hence, Javier Irureta’s rusty team couldn’t afford to be too gung-ho either. Paying Shels due respect, they weren’t inclined to pour forward in support of the often-isolated Walter Pandiani either, instead retreating in numbers at the merest whiff of danger.

Compared to the average weekly domestic diet, or even the over-hyped product across the water, this was more akin to a chess match – vast swathes of the game confined to short-passing exchanges in the middle third of the field.

It’ll be interesting to see whether we’ll look back on these Shelbourne nights in a few years’ time as a one-off, as when 37,000 turned up at the same venue to see Waterford United play Celtic in the European Cup 24 years ago, or as a stepping stone.

If so, this will have been all part of the education process. One wonders how the empty terraces behind both goals looked on TV, but the thunderous clap that greeted both sides – well, Shels anyway – shook the old ground and the downpour that followed by the 13th minute did little to dampen the mood.

The crowd, far from growing impatient, seemed well into the intricacies of the evening. Damien Richardson, the former Shels manager, argued for summer football, a smaller Premier Division and full-time set-ups long before it became moderately fashionable at Tolka Park and a few other select clubs.

Shels’ Euro odyssey has been the by-product of this mini-revolution and he reckons their supporters mightn’t have been so patient on mid-winter nights.

The Shels think-tank of Pat Fenlon and Eamonn Collins reproduced their tactics of the win over Hajduk Split in the previous round, sacrificing Jason Byrne’s predatory instincts by playing him wide on the right, with Stuart Byrne sitting in front of the defence as a man magnet for the Deportivo playmaker, Juan Valeron. He’s probably having breakfast with him this morning.

For Deportivo, Mauro de Silva is probably the world’s deepest-lying midfielder, but he didn’t patrol Wesley Hoolahan nearly as closely until Irureta had them do so in the second half.

Hoolahan, forever looking to get onto the ball and make something happen, always looked the man most likely to open up the blue and white ranks, with Alan Moore’s clever positional play the likeliest source of a goal, the latter’s header from Hoolahan’s 77th-minute cross being a case in point.

In a game of few chances, Shels’ best fell to Byrne when Hoolahan released the overlapping Owen Heary as Enrique Romero slipped on the well-cropped, greasy turf. But Heary should possibly have kept the cross on the ground, and the incoming Byrne couldn’t control a difficult volley.

The crowd’s frustrations were mostly reserved for the Czech referee, who like all his continental brethren, needed only to see a Deportivo player hit the deck to have his whistle in his mouth.

But maybe this is part of the education process too, and Irish referees need to bite the bullet and apply the stricter Uefa guidelines, which apply in most European leagues.

Tellingly, an appreciative crowd rose as one at the end. In hindsight, nil-all was the smart bet. One-all at the Riazor? Shels can still dream a little.

First though, another hotbed in Cork awaits them on Saturday. The National League looks worth winning more than ever now.