Conference League: St Patrick’s Athletic 1 (Keena pen 81) Hegelmann Litauen 0
St Patrick’s Athletic had forgotten how to score goals. Over 400 minutes had been played since Simon Power netted in a 3-1 loss to Galway United on June 20th.
It took the 20th attempt on the Hegelmann goal before Aidan Keena slotted his penalty past Vincentas Sarkauskas’ to give St Pat’s a slender lead before next Thursday’s Uefa Conference League qualifier second-leg in Lithuania.
The relief was palpable around Inchicore when referee Simon Bourdeaud’hui finally, mercifully, pointed to the spot with 10 minutes remaining. Vilius Armalas’s umpteenth nudge on Mason Melia could not convince the Belgian whistler, but the ball broke for Brian Baggley who went down under a reckless tackle by Esmilis Kausinis.
Keena did the rest, putting an injury-interrupted period behind him with his seventh goal of the season.
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Maybe it was the sun beating down on Richmond Park, but the first-half seemed to last longer than usual.
Inside 10 minutes, Melia should have scored twice. Inside 43 minutes, the tuned-in 2,500 crowd twice had penalty shouts fall on deaf ears.
Bourdeaud’hui was the star of the show. Unmoved by calls to award the earlier spot kicks, when the electric Power and Melia were bundled over in the box, the wonder was why the official did not book the Irish players for diving?
Bourdeaud’hui is clearly a believer in the ‘Let It Flow’ edict sent down by Uefa. Nikola Doric eventually saw yellow for fouling Melia but Armalas was lucky to avoid any sanction for needlessly cutting across the teenager before the break.
The 17-year-old Tottenham-bound forward will be disappointed not to have finished early chances in the fourth and eighth minute. The second one came from Brandon Kavanagh intercepting possession and sending a low pass into Melia, whose first touch wrong-footed two Hegelmann defenders. He steadied himself, only to blaze over from 10 metres.
Moments later Melia sprinted 40 metres to regain possession after his sloppy pass went straight to Artem Shchedryi.
With St Pat’s creator-in-chief Chris Forrester inching back from injury, Kavanagh and Barry Baggley ran the show in the middle with Kavanagh’s inswinging free-kick forcing a tip over save rom Vincentas Sarkauskas.
It was an onslaught – Kavanagh glanced the crossbar with what looked like a miscued cross. Maybe he meant it.
Technically, Hegelmann were expected to overwhelm St Pat’s, what with Serbian Lazar Kojic and Brazilian Léo Ribeiro so comfortable in possession. But it was Joe Redmond who caught a dropping ball on his chest, kneed it down and walked out of defence like a libero, shrugging off Cameroonian striker Kader Njoya Abdel before picking a pass to Jamie Lennon.
Power is the best signing Stephen Kenny has made since returning to the League of Ireland last summer. The winger has forced Zach Elbouzedi out of the team, and Hegelmann could not handle his movement down the left as he repeatedly combined with Baggley and Kavanagh.
All that was missing was the final product; Jason McClelland found the side-netting in first-half injury time when he should have cut it back.
The only Lithuanian in the press box was unmoved by St Pat’s dominance, suggesting they would eventually run out of steam.
Hegelmann did appear to play within themselves, perhaps jolted by the feral atmosphere and St Pat’s desire to turn their middling season around with a European adventure.
The lack of goals, only one in their last six outings, began to weigh heavily on Kenny’s side as the minutes ticked away.
But the Lithuanian was wrong. Granted, the energy levels began to dip as Power and Jake Mulraney missed the target with wild attempts, but Kenny had a few aces up his sleeve.
It looked like Melia’s last action of the night was to shoot wide from close range after Baggley’s blocked shot fell kindly for him. In fact, Kenny went with two up front for the last 15 minutes as Keena replaced Kavanagh.
Forrester and Elbouzedi also arrived in a flurry of substitutions that prompted a late push that eventually yielded the Keena winner.
St Patrick’s Athletic: Anang; McLaughlin, Redmond, Grivosti, McClelland; Baggley, Lennon (Forrester 74), Kavanagh (Keena 74); Mulraney (Levy 83), Melia, Power (Elbouzedi 74).
Hegelmann: Sarkauskas; Upstas, Armalas, Doric, Duke; Antanavicius (Harouna 82), Kojic, Shchedryi (Kausinis 73); Kazlauskas (Popescu 65), Njoya Abdel (Yusef 82), Ribeiro (Wesley 73).
Referee: Simon Bourdeaud’hui (Belgium).
