Uefa Cup first round, second leg / Cork City 1 Slavia Prague 2 (Slavia won 4-1 on aggregate): Just as his players had been over 90 minutes of football in which there had rarely been a let-up, Damien Richardson was defiant in defeat, with the Cork City manager declaring that the 2-1 loss by Slavia Prague was just another part of his side's education in the harsh realities of European football.

"Look, the reality is that this tie was lost in the away leg, but I think there was plenty to be positive about tonight," he said. "I thought we showed tremendous spirit out there from beginning to end. Slavia are a decent side and they deserve to be in the group stages of the Uefa Cup, but they had them on the back foot out there like nobody has before this season and they leave here knowing that they've been in one hell of a battle.

"In the end," he said, "you need to be a little streetwise to win games in Europe and we were just lacking in that department. It's about having good players certainly, it's about ability, but it's about footballing intelligence as well.

"You need to be able to take command of situations, and that's where we fell down. You could see the way they crowded the referee, made a lot of things and set the agenda. That comes with experience and we don't have it at this level, but I intend to ensure that we get it. Getting this far in the competition has been of huge benefit to us and it's vital that we don't allow that to go to waste now.

"I don't want this to be viewed as the end of something for Cork City in Europe, it's the beginning of something."

Richardson felt a draw on the night would have ben a fairer reflection of his side's contribution but had no complaints about the overall outcome. The Czechs had been strong and physical, but his players had matched them on that score even if they didn't quite have the know-how to make the required breakthrough early on when there was still the prospect of progression.

"When they were a goal behind in the second half our players knew that they could get ripped apart if they pressed forward in search of goals and got it wrong, but that's what they sought to do and that took courage. There was no attempt at damage limitation, they went for it out there and they very nearly got the draw that they deserved.

"To go as close as they did they had to assert themselves physically because that was part of Slavia's game but that's what they did. Every one of them imposed themselves in the second half and I thought they did themselves proud.

"We may have lost, but I thought we showed tonight just how far we have come in the 11 years since we last played them."