Bohemians give Minsk a battle

THERE is an old adage that there are no easy matches in international football. The point on a different variation was not lost on the Belarus side, Dinamo Minsk, at Dalymount Park last night after the first leg of the preliminary rotund of the UEFA Cup.

A team packed with highly skilful international players, the Dinamo Minsk side must have thought that this was a game that would only really provide a worthwhile test for their strikers.

Instead, they were to find themselves behind to a Derek Swan goal within 30 seconds of the kick off. And they were lucky, on more than one occasion, not to be punished for a disorganised display which rarely earned them the distinction of looking the better team.

Before the game, Turlough O'Connor had promised a positive approach to the contest from the locals, and it wasn't long before his men proved to be as good as their manager's word.

The visitors had not touched the ball when Brian Mooney set off down the right hand side. There certainly should have been somebody on hand to, at the very least, attempt a clearance before Swan stepped up behind Warren Parkes to meet a finely weighted cross with a header that wrongfooted Vitali Varivonchik on the way to the net.

Having dominated the local scene in Belarus since the break up of the old Soviet league, Minsk might reasonably have been expected to get over the early blow without too much trouble. But their inability to settle on the ball, combined with some spirited defending by the locals, helped to keep Bohemians on top through much of the opening period.

The visitors squandered a few free kicks with varying degrees of carelessness and went close to finding themselves further behind in the 16th minute when Jonathan Prizeman's short cross from the left side of the box was headed just wide by Swan.

That aside, however, all of the home side's best work early on had come down the right hand side. When Mooney took leave of his senses in the 18th minute and kicked Oleg Chernyavski in retaliation for a fairly minor obstruction, it was clear that the hosts were going to have trouble finding another nearly so effective route to their opposition's goal.

Su& enough, with Mooney dismissed they continued to defend resolutely, but with Swan drifting out wide and Parkes left alone up front, the bite all but disappeared from their breaks.

Good work around the area by Chernyavski and Dmitri Podrez yielded plenty of chances for Minsk, but with strikers Vladimir and Mikhail Makovski apparently more interested in free kicks that goals, Henderson was hardly tested.

Vladimir Zhuravel did hit the bar, but it wasn't until just past the hour that Dinamo made something of the growing amount of possession they were enjoying. Vladimir Makovski turned Robbie Best some 25 yards out and hit a well placed shot that dipped below Henderson into the bottom right corner.

Chernyavski was sent off shortly afterwards to leave both sides with 10 men.

In the closing stages either team might have stolen a winner, but at the final whistle, it was the Gypsies who had the greater cause for relief having escaped defeat when a loose ball off a parried save by Henderson was hit against the bar by Minsk's goalscorer after 78 minutes when he really should have picked up his second goal of the night.