THE AIM FOR Stephen Kenny before this UEFA Conference League third-round qualifier was to ensure St Patrick’s Athletic were still alive in the tie heading to Azerbaijan for the second leg.
The feeling after the first 90 minutes was that they could easily have killed Sabah off.
A 1-0 win, courtesy of a fine goal from Romal Palmer after Jake Mulraney’s pin-point delivery, was the least that the struggling League of Ireland side deserved.
“It is frustrating that we didn’t get a second, but nothing is easy, you have to earn the right in every game,” Kenny said.
“We had a win at the weekend [against Sligo Rovers] and moved from eighth to seventh in the league. That’s where we are, we are aiming to make history.”
They so nearly wrote a new chapter last night at their temporary home for European games at Tallaght Stadium.
After Palmer’s goal and the 52nd-minute red card shown to Ivan Lepinjica, the Saints really took control.
Sabah couldn’t retain possession and their general shape left them exposed. Pat’s really should have punished them.
Joe Redmond was unlucky with one header from eight yards that struck the post and then trickled along the goalline.
He should have hit the target with an easier chance soon after and was then denied by a fine save from goalkeeper Yusif Imanov who dived low to his left to sweep away another attempt.
Add in a Mason Melia effort being cleared off the line, before then throwing himself at a low cross to tap into an empty net only to see the ball slip past him, and you get a sense of just how dominant St Pat’s were against a club with ambitions of reaching the group stages.
“We are in round three, our ambition is to get to the group, we’ve no right to think that way,” Kenny said.
“I don’t know how we didn’t score more than we did, Joe Redmond could have had a hat-trick, the one off the inside of the post was a hard one to take.
“The dressing room should be massively euphoric after winning in Europe at home, in the first leg against a team of considerable talent, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t euphoric at all. It was ‘Ok, get ready for Sunday’. Next week we know we’re going into the lion’s den and we have to be ready for that.
“The players understood we missed opportunities to score a second goal but nevertheless, keeping a clean sheet is an excellent result. We’ll have to be at our best out there and put in the performance of our lives.”
