Kenny upbeat despite setback

Soccer/Champions League, second qualifying round: Bohemians...0 Rosenberg...1 At the end the capacity crowd in Dalymount was sent home with upbeat talk about it only being half-time in the tie ringing in their ears.

The reality, though, is that despite another brave Bohemians performance the team's dream of earning a place in the third qualifying round of the Champions League has been badly derailed by a Rosenborg team that justified their quiet pre-match confidence with a performance that warranted their win.

Bohs' manager Stephen Kenny remained defiant afterwards, insisting that "anything is possible", before going on to claim that his side are capable of lifting their performance next Wednesday.

"I don't think we played as well as we did last week," he said. "It's a tall order to go over there and overturn this result but hopefully they'll think it's won and we just might surprise them."

His players started as they had finished a week ago with Bobby Ryan, Robbie Doyle and Glen Crowe all thriving on a good supply of ball from the full backs and central midfield.

If Rosenborg's starting 11 - every one a Norwegian international - had spent the opening quarter of an hour getting the measure of their opponents, though, it was clear by the time the opening period approached the halfway mark that they had figured out what they were up against and saw little real reason to feel intimidated.

The greater strength and superior speed of the Norwegians was obvious from the game's second-quarter but the marked difference was the breakneck pace at which they moved the ball about.

The locals chased tirelessly and repeatedly won small but significant battles for possession, particularly in midfield where the team's attacking players consistently dropped back in support of Stephen Caffrey and Kevin Hunt.

But the home side's inability to shift the ball about so swiftly often left the man receiving it under pressure from opponents searching relentlessly for a way to kick start attacking moves.

For a while, even after the home side's best spell had ended, the two sides traded chances. At one end Crowe narrowly failed to connect with a dangerous looking low cross by Ryan and within minutes at the other end Harald Brattbakk had his shot blocked down by Colin Hawkins.

Brattbakk then almost stole in to score amid confusion between Shay Kelly and Damien Lynch but the full back was a little fortunate to see the ball run behind for the corner but not long after again Simon Webb found Crowe after a neat piece of passing play out of midfield and the striker turned the ball within inches of the top right angle.

It was wonderfully open stuff but there was a growing sense if anybody was going to find a way through it was going to be the Norwegians who were no longer content to contain and counter.

Repeatedly, now, they were pressing and prodding at the home side's defences and their goal came 10 minutes from the break when a free by Fredrik Winsnes was deflected behind for a corner from which Brattbakk floated the ball into the six-yard box and Azar Karadas rose above everyone else to head past Kelly.

It could have been the start of something terrible for the locals, but if their resistance had been broken their fierce determination to get something out of the game swiftly resurfaced.

Though Age Hareide's side needed to do no more than preserve their lead to go into next Wednesday's second leg in a position so strong that elimination would seem unthinkable, they continued both to attack and leave space at the back which Bohemians players could press into.

With Doyle running out of steam and Mark Rutherford looking less effective in the second half, Paul Keegan and Andrei Pereplyotkin brought fresh legs to an attack that was finding it a little easier to open up the visiting side's back four.

Kenny's third substitute, Fergal Harkin, managed his side's best chance late on with a low shot whipped across the face of the goal two minutes from time. Even then, he and his team mates picked themselves up and pressed on in search of a late equaliser while going close, and not for the first time, to conceding a second at the other end where Lynch cleared off the line from Johnsen.

It proved beyond them, though, leaving them to head for Trondheim on Monday needing to do twice there what they could not manage last night. The odds are they'll fail but clearly it won't be for the want of trying.

BOHEMIANS: Kelly; Lynch, Hawkins, Heary, Webb; Ryan (Harkin, 83 mins), Hunt, Caffrey, Rutherford (Pereplyotkin, 70 mins); Doyle (Keegan, 60 mins), Crowe.

ROSENBORG: Johnsen; Basma, Riseth, Hoftun, Stensaas; Johnsen, Berg, Winsnes (Strand, 83 mins); George (Solli, 70 mins), Karadas, Brattbakk.

Referee: B Brugger (Austria).