UEFA CUP/First qualifying round, first leg - Shamrock Rovers ... 1 Djugardens IF ... 3: The start they have made to their league season did little to promise that Shamrock Rovers' latest adventure in Europe would amount to any more than a two-act drama.
Sure enough, last night's defeat by a quicker and far slicker Swedish outfit confirmed the suspicion that Liam Buckley's side will be free to concentrate on their domestic chores by the end of the month.
As usual the Irish side deserved some credit for the relentless way they battled with a superior side in this UEFA Cup qualifying round. Two goals from Samuel Wowoah and one from Andreas Johansson compared to their one from Stephen McGuinness left the Dubliners with nothing at all to complain about at the final whistle.
The visiting side's opening goal came, as it so often seems to in these circumstances, against the run of play with Rovers having dominated the 15 minutes or so that preceded it and had gone close on a couple of occasions to scoring.
Only Noel Hunt looked capable of really stretching the visitors with his twisting runs towards goal from the left-hand side although there were brief flashes of the sort of passing moves going forward that Buckley will be hoping his side can start to produce regularly during the season ahead.
Had they continued to produce them last night then perhaps they might have taken more from the game but after Babis Stefanidis skipped in from the right past the Rovers defence in the 24th minute and then slipped the ball through for Wowoah to slot home they never quite recovered their early fluency.
In midfield Rovers were too easily hustled into making basic mistakes and the Swedish central pairing of Kim Kallstrom and particularly Stefan Rehn emerged as the game's dominant influences during the first 45 minutes.
By the end of that opening period it was hard to see how Rovers could get themselves back level with a side, despite sitting on an away goal, were still happy to throw four men into attack when they won the ball.
Rovers, though, saw plenty of the ball and had their fair share of corners over the course of the game. And when a defensive error five minutes after the break gifted them their first of the second half McGuinness made it 1-1 with a powerful header that clattered in off the underside of the bar.
The local fans had hardly time to taunt the substantial and generally noisy visiting support regarding their sudden silence, however, before the Swedes were back in front. Mikael Dorsin this time started an attack down the left that was finished from the right by Stefanidis whose low cross toward the near post was knocked home again by Wowoah. The striker then had a hand in the third as well which Kallstrom put the ball away again from close range.
For the 20 minutes that remained the home side fought hard to salvage something to bring to Stockholm in two weeks but a James Keddy shot that missed the target by some distance was as close as they came to managing it. Damage limitation in the return leg it seems.
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Horgan; O'Keeffe, Scully, McGuinness, Doyle; Colwell, Costello (S Grant, 76 mins), Byrne; T Grant (Keddy, half-time), Francis (Robinson, 64 mins), Hunt.
DJUGARDENS: Isaksson; Rasack, Eriksson, Karlsson, Dorsin; Rehn, Kallstrom; Johansson (Bergtoft, 85 mins); Stefanidis, Wowoah (Bapupa, 76 mins), Chanko.
Referee: L Cantalejo (Spain).
