Bohemians miss their chance to strike

Bate 1 Bohemians 0: As they travel home from Minsk this morning Bohemians won't be the first eircom League team to take consolation from the fact the defeat they suffered in the away leg of the European game could have been worse.

What will surely niggle Stephen Kenny and his players between now and next Wednesday's return game at Dalymount Park is that it could have been an awful lot better too.

Having fallen behind to a Yauheni Lashankou goal after 24 minutes, the visitors endured a couple of spells in yesterday's game when they might have been considered fortunate not to have fallen further behind.

But if Glen Crowe had his scoring boots on there were chances for the visitors, too, in an evenly contested game that left the Irish champions with real hopes of progressing to meet Rosenborg in the next round.

Around 4,000 Belarussian fans defied dreadful conditions to see a game the locals appear to have expected to win rather comfortably, and it must have come as something of a shock when the Dublin side made by far the better start.

Through the early stages it was Stephen Caffrey and Kevin Hunt who had the better of things in central midfield, an edge they maintained through most of the game, while the willingness of Damien Lynch and Simon Webb to press forward whenever the slightest bit of space opened up was an early indication that the visiting side had no intention of sitting back.

Over the evening the visitors matched their opponents in just about every area, although crucially BATE did take one of their chances, and that is something Bohemians, despite a couple of goalmouth scrambles, never threatened to do until very late on.

Manager Stephen Kenny admitted to being disappointed with a goal that had started with a harmless enough move involving Dmitry Likhtarovich and Aleh Shkabara, but when the latter found Lashankou in a lot of space 10 yards out from the far post with a chipped cross Bohemians were suddenly in real trouble, although even then the winger's weak shot would surely not have slipped under Matt Gregg had the ball not been so wet.

For a spell in the second half Kenny's men were fortunate not to concede at least one more, with the home side exerting a good deal of pressure on the Bohemians back four, and Igor Chumachenko, in particular, fluffing chances to double his side's lead.

For the most part, though, Kenny's players held their own with surprising ease with a defence based on the slightly improvised central partnership of Colin Hawkins and Thomas Heary comfortably handing the BATE attack.

Hunt observed afterwards he had been surprised the hosts hadn't attempted to dictate the pattern of the game more, and given the number of opportunities they gave the Irish midfield to add weight to the attack they might have considered themselves a little fortunate not to be punished.

For all their possession, however, Bohemians created almost nothing that could be described as more than a half-chance.

Early on Crowe had forced an error by goalkeeper Yuri Zhanou that might have presented an easy goal but for the speed of the local player's recovery.

And later Crowe managed a couple of tame headers, only one of which forced Zhanou into a save, while Robbie Doyle curled a free inches wide of the right hand post from just outside the area.

After coming on for Doyle eight minutes from time, Paul Keegan was probably the one to go closest for Kenny's side when the former Bray striker met a Heary ball into the box with an overhead kick that was deflected wide.

By then the main threat to Bohemians came from the succession of breaks attempted by their hosts who must have been well aware that Hawkins, a doubt before the game with an Achilles tendon strain, was limping badly and looked incapable of any serious running.

Kenny said subsequently that the central defender is unlikely to play in the return leg after suffering a good deal of pain in his attempt to get through yesterday.

Kenny went on to observe that he felt his team's performance had been one of its strongest since he arrived at Dalymount Park a year-and-a-half ago.

"I thought our back four were great and our ball retention really excellent," he remarked, adding that he didn't think that BATE would be capable of winning in Dublin, something that makes the absence of an away goal all the more frustrating.

In its absence, Bohemians will have to win next week, and for all the positive aspects of yesterday's performance that is going to require an improved performance, most notably up front, against a team that will not concede goals easily.

The Dubliners will need Bobby Ryan, Mark Rutherford and even the generally impressive Doyle to contribute more than he managed yesterday, and they certainly can't afford to slip up again in the way they did when Lashankou was allowed to put his side in front.

Most of all they could do with Crowe doing what he does best and adding to his tally of five goals in European competition.

They will prepare for the return game believing they can upset their rivals and progress to the next round where the Norwegians await. On the strength of this encounter that prize is still very much theirs for the taking.

BATE: Zhanou; Baha, Mardas, Molash; Shmihera, Shkabara (Rubnenko, 79 min), Tarasenka, Likhtarovich, Lashankou; Biahanski (Kobets, 68 min), Strypeikis (Chumachenko, half-time).

BOHEMIANS: Gregg; Lynch, Hawkins, Heary, Webb; Ryan (Harkin, 79 min), Caffrey, Hunt, Rutherford; Doyle (Keegan, 82 min), Crowe.

Referee: J Jara (Czech Republic).