Liam Buckley confident St Patrick’s Athletic can bounce back despite Riga defeat

Skonto Riga 2 St Patrick’s Athletic 1: Liam Buckley was looking on the upside last night despite his St Patrick’s Athletic side losing their Europa League first leg tie away to Skonto Riga.

That precious commodity in European football of an away goal was secured by the Saints, leaving the hosts with a mission of winning 1-0 in next Thursday’s return leg to progress.

Aaron Greene fired the Irish team ahead but they conceded shortly before the interval and again with 25 minutes remaining.

One regret for Buckley upon departing Latvia, however, was the concession of that second goal to a physically imposing Skonto side.

“As we know from our recent experience in Europe, progressing from ties is usually dependent on scoring at home,” said Buckley.

“We probably should have scored more than once today. But the team is set up to create chances and we should have made sure we score and don’t concede back at Richmond Park next week.”

Some scintillating early passages of play by the Saints showed the hosts they had a game on their hands.

And, after defending a couple of dangerous set-pieces by Skonto, Pat’s forged ahead on 21 minutes.

Chris Forrester, hailed by Damien Duff this week as one of the finest domestic players at present, dissected the defence with a telegraphed pass to Greene, who drilled his shot beyond Andrejs Pavlovs and into the top corner.

Powerful on the break, Riga punished the Dubliners for failing to stretch their lead through chances that fell to Sean Hoare and Chris Fagan.

Arturs Karasausks was clinical on 38 minutes by finishing past Brendan Clarke.

That equaliser opened up the game more but Skonto grabbed the winner with St Patrick’s Athletic caught off-guard.

Karasausks was the provider this time on 65 minutes, teeing up Vladislavs Gutkovskis to tuck the ball home.

SKONTO RIGA: Pavlovs; Timofejevs, Smirnovs, Jermolajevs, Renars; Kozlovs, Kovalovs; Mena, Visnakovs (Isajevs, 73), Gutkovskis (Lukaniuk, 83); Karasausks.

ST PATS: Clarke, O’Brien (Desmond 46), Hoare (McGuinness, 67), Browne, Bermingham; Chambers, Bolger, Brennan; Forrester, Fagan (McGrath 74) Greene.

Referee: Fran Jovic (CRO).