Johnny Kenny misses glorious chance to earn 10-man Shamrock Rovers big Champions League win
Shamrock Rovers will be happy to bring this Champions League tie back to Tallaght Stadium scoreless, but they should have been celebrating a smash-and-grab win in Iceland.
Despite being reduced to 10 men for the final 10 minutes, after a shocking decision to send off midfielder Darragh Nugent, they created the best chance of the night in the closing moments.
Substitute Johnny Kenny used his pace to expose the lack of speed in the Vikingur Reykjavik defence and race onto a long Darragh Burns ball pass.
He picked the ball up on half-way, sprinted behind the defence and towards the area, before lifting his shot over goalkeeper Ingvar Jonsson and his crossbar.
It was a poor miss, but twice Kenny’s pace led to Rovers chances – and gave manager Stephen Bradley a handy insight into how they might approach next week’s second-leg.
The Hoops made a promising start to the game, with an attack down the right inside the opening two moments causing panic inside the Vikingur penalty area.
Josh Honohan whipped the ball towards the back post, where it was swept behind for a corner and, from the resulting flag-kick, Roberto Lopes headed Dylan Watts’ centre over.
It didn’t take the hosts long, however, to wrestle control, although Rovers seemed happy enough to drop back and allow them to push on, and get a feel for their attacking strengths.
It was clear from early on that the Icelandic champions were at their most threatening when they charged down the right flank.
Karl Gunnarsson linked up time and again with Erlingur Agnarsson and the latter produced a handful of dangerous deliveries.
Outside of an early let-off, when Vikingur struck the post twice inside a couple of seconds, there was little to trouble the visiting defence.
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