EUROPA LEAGUE PLAY-OFF ROUND, FIRST LEG Shamrock Rovers 1 Partizan Belgrade 1:BY THE end of a frantic night's action in Tallaght it somehow seemed plausible to believe that Shamrock Rovers' European adventure has a few more chapters to come.

None, though, could be relied upon to beat this one for excitement, with the Irish champions scrapping their way back from what looked set at one stage to be a decisive defeat to give themselves hope of securing a place in the group stages of the Europa League, thanks to a display of remarkable spirit and a late Gary McCabe goal of impressive quality.

Having conceded early on here and narrowly failed to round off their second-half revival with the additional goal that would have greatly strengthened their position ahead of the away game, Michael O’Neill conceded that there is still a great deal to do in Belgrade but insisted that there is the basis for travelling next week with a sense of belief.

“We have to score,” said the northerner, “and they know more about us now which always helps. But we know more about them too and we know with a lot more certainty where we think we can hurt them

“We faced a similar situation last year when we went to Israel and won,” he continued. “And there’s a lot of positives that we can take from tonight. If we didn’t believe that we could score out there then we might as well stay at home.

“But we had other chances tonight, they scrambled the ball off the line at one stage and Twiggy had one there towards the end that he probably would have expected to score on another night. We didn’t get very much in terms of decisions tonight either….maybe we’ll get a few of them next week.”

O’Neill acknowledged that it had taken his side until the closing stages of the first half before they really started to compete with their opponents.

Prior to the game there had been no bones made about the importance of keeping a clean sheet here in Dublin if they were to go to Serbia next week with a serious chance of progressing, but as it turned out the locals were caught cold with Nemanja Tomic putting the visitors ahead less than a quarter of an hour in.

The danger signs had, in reality, been there even before then but the ease with which Vladimir Jovancic ghosted into space behind Enda Stevens and was picked out by Aleksander Rankovic and then pulled the ball back low into the centre of the area for the 23-year-old to finish clearly had a pretty deflating effect on the home support for a bit.

Their spirits were lifted by the sheer industry displayed by their players over the bulk of the 75 minutes that followed although they did have to endure a particularly difficult spell in the immediate aftermath of the goal.

Rovers had to work very hard just to stay on anything like level terms at that stage and while they did start to compete more effectively in the run up to half-time it was the second period, when O’Neill started to change the shape of things, that they really started to prosper.

For all their improvement, it remained hard to see for quite some time how Rovers might score even as O’Neill, having first introduced Gary O’Neill as a second striker then stepped up the chase by replacing Stephen Rice with Ciaran Kilduff.

Finally, the Serbs began to pull back into their shells and the goal duly came eight minutes from time courtesy of McCabe who slipped away from his marker on the edge of the area before playing a wonderful exchange of passes with Gary Twigg and then firing low past Stojkovic.

Moments later there might have been another when the Partizan defence, still looking shaken, failed to deal effectively with a Pat Sullivan long throw and after a couple of touches by team-mates, Twigg miscued on the turn.

The Scot got another chance to grab a winner before the end but completing the comeback proved to be beyond the Irish champions, who must now score at least once away if they are to secure what would be a remarkable win on aggregate and make history by progressing to the group stages.

SHAMROCK ROVERS: Thompson; Sullivan, Sives, Murrray, Stevens; McCormack; McCabe, Rice (Kilduff, 77 mins), Finn (Turner, half-time), Dennehy (O'Neill, 59 mins); Twigg.

PARTIZAN BELGRADE: Stojkovic; Rankovic, Rnic, Ivanov, Stankovic; Tomic, Medo, Smiljaninc, S Ilic (L Markovic, 85 mins); Eduardo (Babovic, 61 mins), Jovancic (S Markovic, 90 mins).

Referee: H Kaasik(Estonia).