Rovers give Spurs a scare

Tottenham Hotspur 3 Shamrock Rovers 1

Shamrock Rovers stunned White Hart Lane for ten glorious minutes as they led Premier League Spurs before heroically losing their Europa League Group A clash on a memorable night in north London.

Rovers man-of-the-match Stephen Rice turned home a Pat Sullivan shot to give Hoops a shock lead five minutes after the break.

But Spurs stormed back to score three times in six minutes.

They levelled when Russia striker Roman Pavlyuchenko headed home Giovani’s cross on the hour mark.

Jermaine Defoe put Spurs in front two minutes later, diving low to get his head to substitute Andros Townsend’s cross.

A brilliant counterattack brought the third goal within a further four minutes. Defoe led the charge forward to set up Giovani to rifle home from an angle.

In truth, it might have been more with Rovers’ keeper Richard Brush making subsequent stops from Danny Rose and substitute Falque late on.

As expected, Spurs owned much of the ball from the off and slowly began to carve Rovers open with some incisive short passing

But Brush was in fine form with two stunning first half stops.

Mexican international midfielder Giovani was Spurs' chief threat playing Defoe in for their first real chance on 16 minutes with Brush getting a vital touch to deflect the shot onto the bar.

Four minutes later Brush excelled again, getting a firm hand to Pavlyuchenko’s drive after a neat one-two with Aaron Lennon.

The woodwork rescued Rovers again on 34 minutes with the impressive Rose curling a stunning left-footer off the bar.

Stephen O’Donnell cleared off the line from a Pavlyuchenko header while the big striker then arrowed a shot narrowly wide as Rovers held out until the break before their magnificent cameo early in the second half.