Karpaty cash in on home side's distraction

EUROPA LEAGUE THIRD QUALIFYING ROUND, SECOND LEGS: St Patrick's Ath 1 Karpaty Lviv 3AS THE dust settled on a difficult day for the St Patrick's Athletic, what was beyond doubt in Tallaght last night was they were well beaten on the field of play.

Getting the two goals they required even to force extra-time last night was a tall enough order, of course, but for all the inevitable claims that their pay dispute, once settled, wouldn’t be a distraction when kick-off time came around, Pete Mahon’s players looked a pale imitation here of the side that had won so well against IBV and Shakther Karagandy in the home legs of the previous two rounds.

The game was evenly contested for long stretches, but it was Karpaty who had just about the best of the opening 20 minutes pretty slim pickings.

When they took the lead in the 22nd minute, courtesy of Sergei Zenjov who found the top corner impressively on the turn after a neat passing sequence on the edge of the area, the game was effectively up for the locals.

The divisions amongst their supporters became clear with some abusing the players over the build- up to the game and others urging them to get behind the team.

The latter faction seemed to win out, although in the sparsely populated stadium the atmosphere never came close to matching the one generated on Tuesday night, and with the Dubliners now needing four goals, the whole thing had the air at times of a lot of fans just going through the motions. They were also reported to have offered to make up the shortfall in player earnings at the heart of the bonus dispute.

David McMillan did finally force a save from Andriy Tlumak shortly before the break and his brother Evan bagged himself another European goal 12 minutes after that when he finished from close range after the visitors had failed to clear a corner.

For a few moments, Mahon’s men acquired a renewed sense of urgency, but it didn’t last. Igor Khudobyak, the Karpaty captain singled out by the home manager before the game as their best player, suddenly gave us a glimpse of his talent by cutting inside from the left and firing a wonderfully struck curling shot beyond Gary Rogers to the top right hand corner of the goal.

Clearly more deflated than ever, the hosts set about renewing the chase, but in reality they looked well beaten, a demeanour not altered much by Igor Ochchypko’s goal, after Derek Pender had initially blocked Andriy Tkachuk’s low drive just short of the line nine minutes from time.

Daryl Kavanagh might have grabbed another for the Irish side between that and the end, but slipped just as he teed up his shot.

“We were beaten by the better side, there’s no question of that,” said Mahon afterwards. “You could see the difference and there was no shame in it.

“I thought we had a decent spell after we got the equaliser, but their first two goals were fantastic, that’s what you get when you have internationals. It shows how strong the Ukrainian league is when a team like that can be second or third from the bottom. It must be some league.”

Asked about the difficulties that preceded the game which only ended when the FAI brokered a compromise at a time when club owner Garret Kelleher’s position was reportedly that the club would go under if the game wasn’t played and so lost around more than €300,000 in revenue, Mahon insisted he had always believed his players would turn up.

“I said I had every confidence it would go ahead,” he said, “I know the players better than anyone and I knew how much the European games mean to them so I had no doubt that it would go ahead.”

David McMillan declined to comment afterwards, saying the players wanted to look ahead to Sunday’s league game against his former club, UCD, but Gary Rogers insisted the players had been focused at kick-off.

“To be honest,” he said, “going out on the pitch is the easy stuff. Once you go out there all that matters is doing your best and trying to win the game, but we were up against superior opposition. We gave it everything we could, though. We went out fighting, like we always do.”

ST PATRICK'S ATHLETIC: Rogers; Pender, E McMillan (Kenna, 69), Shortall, Bermingham; Bradley (Daly, 24), McFaul; Kavanagh, Mulcahy, Doyle (North, 61); D McMillan.

KARPATY LVIV:Tlumak; Fedetskiy, Milosevic, Gomez, Oscchypko; Tkachuk, Martynyuk; Kopolovets (Voronkov, 55), Martinez (Cristobal, 76), Khudobyk; Zenjov (Pacheco, 68).

Attendance: 2,140

Referee:O Hategn (Romania)

Karpaty win 5-1 on aggregate