UEFA EUROPA LEAGUE Third qualifying round, first leg St Patrick's Athletic 1 Krylia Sovetov 0: THEY HAVEN'T had much to cheer about around Richmond Park this season but at the final whistle last night an ecstatic capacity crowd hailed a most unlikely Europa League victory with Declan O'Brien hurtling towards hero status thanks to his third goal in as many European games since arriving on loan from Dundalk a couple of weeks back.
For the first 45 minutes the home side looked hopelessly outclassed by a Russian side that was comfortably stronger in just about every department.
Crucially, though, the industry of the locals simply couldn’t be matched while Jeff Kenna’s side also edged things on the finishing front as O’Brien powered home magnificently from an angle after Bobby Ryan had sent the striker scampering clear of Jiri Jarosik 19 minutes from time.
Pretty much all of the talk out of the host camp this week had indicated they accepted they would be up against it and Kenna’s decision to start Glenn Fitzpatrick up front as a lone striker really didn’t do much for the Dubliners’ cause.
The manager can hardly have wanted the rest of his players to defend quite as deep as did but the 28year-old striker tends to pose a tame enough threat against better League of Ireland defences these days and, marked on this occasion for long spells by Czech international Jarosik, he looked utterly anonymous here.
Behind him, Kenna’s men repeatedly found themselves bunching in and around their own area in an attempt to smother the attacking efforts of their opponents. Their sometimes desperate defending did keep the Russians at bay to the extent that Gary Rogers didn’t have a lot to do but Fitzpatrick’s inability to make more of an impact meant the Dubliners’ regular reliance on hoofed clearances to ease the pressure tended to bring only the most fleeting periods of relief.
Under so much strain, there was some valiant stuff from Jamie Harris and the rest of the St Patrick’s defence and persistent frustration for their Russian visitors who, without the injured Jan Koller, looked at times as though they couldn’t quite believe such dominance wasn’t at least yielding a few decent chances.
Briefly, things improved for them after the break as the home side reorganised. Fitzpatrick came off with Bobby Ryan replacing him on the pitch and Declan O’Brien taking over his leading role in the attack.
The wide men and midfield now worked hard to shift the game up the field a bit and suddenly the locals began to look a little more like contenders. Inevitably, they also left more room for the Russians to push forward, but few of their 3,000 or so supporters seemed to mind too much.
Still, there were some sharp intakes of breath nine minutes after the break when Ruslan Adzhindzhal crossed well and Rogers had to save pretty sharply low to his right. A few minutes later there was a major let-off for the locals when Evgeniy Savin squandered a clear-cut opportunity from the middle of the area and late on Rogers did well again to push a free by Vladislav Kulik around his post.
From the resulting corner Gareth O’Connor then had to prevent Savin’s admittedly weak side-footed effort from sneaking inside the foot of the right-hand post and in injury-time Timofey Kalachev blasted over from close range.
By the time of the later chances, though, St Patrick’s were defending a lead and the crowd was desperately willing them to hold out. A couple of minutes from time they came close to getting more than they’d been hoping for when Ryan Guy broke free, ran 50 metres to the edge of the Krylia box but then narrowly missed the target with a left-footed drive.
The Russians promptly returned to the attack but simply couldn’t dig out the equaliser they required to steal the advantage away from the Irish side going into next Thursday’s second leg.
ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Gavin, Harris, Partridge, Stevens; Guy, O'Connor, Lynch, Byrne (Dempsey, 71 mins), O'Brien; Fitzpatrick (Ryan, half-time).
KRYLIA SOVETOV: Lobos; Shishkin, Belozervo, Jarosik, Leilton; Ivanov (Kulik, 78 mins), Bober, Adzhindzhal, Ignatev; Kalachev; Savin.
Referee: Z Szabo(Hungary).
