Ben Blake reports from the Polish Army Stadium in Warsaw
DUNDALK’S CHAMPIONS LEAGUE adventure may have ended tonight, but their Europa League voyage has just begun.
A 1-1 draw with Legia Warsaw saw the Premier Division champions just miss out becoming the first League of Ireland side to make the group stages of the continent’s elite club competition.
After the result, goalkeeper Gary Rogers was understandably downbeat.
“It’s one of those ‘could’ve been’ stories,” said Rogers. “It’s very disappointing. The penalty at home really cost us in the end.
“We gave it everything so it’s disappointing to go out like that.
“We knew that if we could score first we could ask questions of them. After the sending off, we didn’t push forward enough and when we did we got caught out in the 92nd minute, which is disappointing.
“We gave it a right good go and we can be proud of our performance.
“When you’ve come this far and the opportunity is there it’s one you really want to take. They don’t come around very often so it is gutting.”
Dundalk will now turn their attention to Friday’s Europa League draw in Monaco, when they discover who they will be grouped with.
“We’ve got Europa League to look forward to and we’ve shown that we can compete and do well in games,” added Rogers. “Hopefully that will stand to us because we’ve got six more big matches to look forward.
We’ve played good opposition in BATE Borisov and Legia Warsaw, who are top sides, so we know we gave a good account of ourselves.
“We know we have to learn from mistakes because we did make mistakes over the two legs. It’s important we take on them lesson and eradicate them going forward.
“All the clubs we’re going to play will be big clubs in comparison to us so it’s great to have that to look forward to.”
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