AN 83rd minute goal from Dusan Tittel ended St Patrick's Athletic's hopes of a surprise victory at the Tehelne Pole stadium last night with the late strike confirming a 5-3 aggregate win in the UEFA Cup preliminary round.

The setback for the Dubliners arrived from a corner by Stefan Maixner which was hit short to the near post for Tittel who got away from Paul Campbell to head across the goal and in.

It was a disappointing conclusion to the evening for the Irish side who had battled hard and enjoyed several good chances to take the lead in the match and move within a goal of qualifying for the next round of the competition.

Early on, however, it was Slovan Bratislava who had the better of things with Szilard Nemeth capitalising on a mistake by Packie Lynch in the 15th minute to get into the area only to shoot low and wide into the side netting.

Brian Morrisroe might have put the visitors ahead five minutes later when his shot was just off the mark but the St Patrick's defence then had to resist some sustained pressure as first Robert Tomaschek and then Maixner went close to beating Gareth Byrne.

Before the break, however, Brian Kerr's side broke out of defence and had their best chance of the match to find the net when McDonnell timed his run on to an Eddie Gormley corner perfectly but crashed his header off the underside of the bar.

Shortly afterwards, Johnny Glynn drew a couple of fine stops in quick succession from Ladislav Molnar Byrne kept his side in the proceedings in the 69th minute when he got down low to his left to deny Vladimir Kinder, while, at the other end, the visitors, who still looked determined to take the game to their hosts, strung together a neat passing move that involved Paul Osam, Paul Campbell, Trevor Crolly and Martin Reilly with Glynn just failing to get on to the end of a fine low cross.