UEFA Cup St Patrick's Athletic 0 Hertha Berlin 0 (Hertha win 2-0 on aggregrate):BEFORE THEIR encounter with Dynamo Kiev a few weeks back Drogheda United's Stuart Byrne observed that having made so much progress on other fronts, Irish teams really had to learn to take what few chances they manage to create in their bigger European games.
Sure enough, a missed sitter was to end up costing United a place in the next round and it was a somewhat similar story yesterday at the RDS where the home side's finishing wasn't good enough to earn them the win they needed.
St Patrick's Athletic manager John McDonnell was dismayed afterwards, insisting his side had dominated and would have won but for a lack of luck. "I'm very proud of my players and of everybody at the club," he said. "We said the other day we'd have a go and I thought our plan worked, we should have won the game.
"We played it at a higher tempo and higher up the pitch. We looked to mix it up more than we had over there and we had a bit of joy getting behind them. The problem was we just didn't have any luck in front of goal."
Certainly his was the better of the two teams but for all their good work in defence and attack, the Dubliners weren't clinical enough in front of goal. Over the 90 minutes they carved out six clearcut chances to score against a good but, it seemed, beatable Bundesliga outfit but only twice did they hit the target and on neither of those occasions was the goalkeeper tested in the way he should have been.
Gary Demspey directed a close-range header straight at Jaroslav Drobny in the first half half and a few moments later the home side had a decent penalty claim waved away after Fabian Lustenberger had played the ball with his hand while challenging Ryan Guy. The American midfielder was the other player to force a save from the goalkeeper while Keith Fahey and Dempsey both hit the post and John Murphy, brought on towards the end for Glen Fitzpatrick, passed up two late chances.
It was hard on the St Patrick's supporters that made up the vast majority of the 4,700-strong crowd because as their side gradually took hold of the game, it really did seem they would eventually make the breakthrough that just might have put them on the road to qualification.
"I thought we were unfortunate not to get at least one goal," remarked Fahey ruefully afterwards. "They conceded one at the weekend in the league and apparently they were awful afterwards. It would have been nice to put them under that sort of pressure again."
As it was, the Germans seemed increasingly happy to dig in and get plenty of bodies behind the ball while the somewhat erratic Andriy Voronin provided the lone focus for their breaks forward towards the end. The Ukrainian, though, was marshalled well by a defence in which Damien Lynch was outstanding before being sent off late on for a second bookable offence.
In front of him Guy did well overall while in central midfield Fahey and Dempsey steadily came to dominate the contest having started a little shakily. Mark Quigley, meanwhile, not only worked tirelessly for the cause but also produced some wonderful pieces of footwork and his was the cross that Dempsey should have turned home.
"For a spell over there they were probably a bit away from us in terms of class," concluded Fahey afterwards, "but for the rest of the time we matched them and tonight, I think we were probably the better side."
Hertha's coach Lucien Favre didn't really disagree. The Swiss man was generous with his praise for aspects of the home side's play. Needless to say, though, the finishing never got a mention.
ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC:Ryan; Lynch, Gavin, Harris, Rogers; Guy, Dempsey (O'Cearuill, 91 mins), Fahey, Kirby (O'Brien, 80 mins); Fitzpatrick (Murphy, 80 mins), Quigley.
HERTHA BERLIN:Drobny; Chahed, Friedrich, Simunic, Von Bergen, Nicu; Piszczek (Stein, 91 mins), Lustenberger (Dardai, 71 mins), Cicero; Raffael (Domovchiyski, 65 mins); Voronin.
Referee:M Koukoulakis (Greece).
