IRELAND took another small but important step forward yesterday when they qualified to meet Holland in today's final of the inaugural European Championship in Denmark. Gibraltar were not seen as a threat to Ireland's 100 per cent record in Group B and proved disappointing opponents, mustering only 91 runs which were knocked off for the loss of two wickets soon after lunch at Hoege.
The surprise was that Gibraltar chose to bat. Mark Patterson was below his best but still managed his customary early wickets, Uel Graham swung in with two as well but Neil Doak was again the main wicket taker for Ireland, claiming the last four.
Decker Curry then quickly tucked into an attack that is barely better than a good village standard and should have been annoyed to hit a long hop to cover alter making 50. One positive thing to emerge from a hopeless mis match was a return to some sort of form for Andrew Patterson.
WHAT a game and what a night for Richmond Park's first taste of European football. It was a defeat for a gallant St Patrick's side but a performance that will be remembered for a long time. St Patrick's looked out of this UEA Cup preliminary round tie after only 19 minutes of this first leg when Slovan, with eight full internationals in their starting line up, ran up a 2-0 lead. It was surely over, we thought, when that became 3-0 on 39 minutes.
But St Patrick's got one back before half time and then stormed through to level the game at 3-3 by 71 minutes only to lose to a goal they won't be happy with six minutes later.
The match sprinted from the kick off into a frenzied game of end to end football. With St Patric's appealing for an offside, Szilard Nemeth calmly rounded Brian McKenna and slid the ball home to open the scoring. John McDonnell was hesitant as Stefan Maixner got to Ladislav Pecko's pass first to cleverly lob McKenna from 20 yards to increase the lead.
But it wasn't one way traffic by any means. In between John Glynn had headed against the underside of the Slovan crossbar. The home side looked down and out, however, when Nemeth got his second goal with the most skilful strike of the night.
St Patrick's reduced the deficit a minute before the break when Glynn drove home Eddie Gormley's low cross from six yards out.
Brian Kerr brought on top scorer Ricky O'Flaherty for the second half and it was he who pulled a further goal back with a typical strike on 61 minutes. Martin Reilly won possession to feed Crolly whose pinpoint cross was headed home by O'Flaherty.
Within another 10 minutes, skipper McDonnell equalised from Gormley's corner. But Slovan struck for the winner when substitutes Jozef Juriga and Patrick Karasy combined, with the latter volleying home a corner while unmarked at the far post.
