`Part-timers' prove a point

The Scottish media were at it over the weekend referring to Aberdeen's brave show of character as they pluckily put Thursday night's "debacle" against Irish "part-timers" Bohemians behind them to earn a point at Motherwell.

Indeed, the tone of the coverage of Aberdeen's exit from the UEFA Cup has been remarkable for its harshness on the league here. One Sunday newspaper columnist last week wrote about the threat of the Scottish Premier League becoming "another League of Ireland" if Rangers and Celtic defected and just about everywhere the term "humiliation" has been bandied about with gusto.

The fact it is the first win over two legs by an Irish club against a Scottish side goes some way to explaining the attitude of the pundits in Glasgow and Aberdeen. However, the extent of their surprise as well as their patronising attitude to Bohemians is still a little rich.

The fact is that recent results between Irish and Scottish teams suggest that, Rangers and Celtic aside, there nothing at all to choose from between clubs in the two countries.

Set aside Rangers' 7-3 aggregate win against Shelbourne in 1998 (how many clubs in the Premier Division did they inflict that sort of aggregate score on last season?) and you actually have to go back to the early 1970s to find an occasion on which an Irish side lost by more than three goals.

Along the way Rangers beat Bohemians by just one goal in 1984, Celtic came within a whisker of going out to Dundalk in 1979 and, in 1987, Bohemians were beaten just 1-0 by a somewhat more formidable Aberdeen side less than a year after the departure of Alex Ferguson.

Over the past couple of seasons Shelbourne have gone out to Kilmarnock through an injury-time goal in the away leg and St Patrick's Athletic joined the small number of sides to get a European result in Parkhead before some sloppy defending handed the Scots a win in the return match.

Okay, in every case prior to last week Scottish clubs prevailed but to treat Bohemians' win as if it were some sort of freak is ridiculous. The Irish were long overdue a win.

It should also be noted that Aberdeen would, in any other season, have been relegated from the Premier Division before the summer. Only an expansion of the top flight combined with another club's inability to meet the minimum ground requirements saved them. With the club badly strapped financially, the club's squad remained more or less unaltered over the summer and so what Bohemians were up against was effectively a Scottish first division side. As for the repeated references to the Irish "part-timers", the reality is that just about all of the Bohemians first-team panel are a full-time footballer. As for the Aberdeen manager, Ebbe Skovdahl, it may turn out that he has something to be grateful to Roddy Collins for. The Dane emerged with considerable dignity from last week's defeat. Over the course of the two games he dealt with the considerable provocation thrown his way by Collins with impressive calm.

While the former Brondby boss rightly laughed off Collins' talk in Aberdeen about the Dane being too old for the management game, the Dubliner's remarks last week regarding the Dons manager's job being on the line must have been harder to stomach from another manager. Ironically, Collins' remarks appear to have galvinised support around the club for Skovdahl while the way he handled himself in Dublin clearly had the effect of increasing his already considerable popularity with the Scottish press. In the circumstances it's hard to see him being let go in the immediate future, and given the constraints within which he's working there would appear to be little justification in showing him the door.

Certainly not, in any case, for being unfortunate enough to be in charge of a poor side who simply couldn't do what was required of them against a team of less well paid professionals on a memorable night at Tolka Park.