STEPHEN BRADLEY was critical of the officiating after Shamrock Rovers were knocked out of the Champions League in controversial fashion against Slovan Bratislava last night.
After a 2-0 first-leg loss left the Hoops with an uphill task, they threatened an unlikely comeback at Tallaght Stadium, as goals from Graham Burke and Richie Towell levelled the tie on aggregate.
A brilliant effort from Vladimir Weiss 18 minutes from time restored the visitors’ advantage and ultimately sealed their progression into the next round, but it led to angry protests from Rovers players, who believed Roberto Lopes had been fouled in the build-up. Bradley, too, was adamant that there had been an infringement.
“It’s a definite foul,” he said after the game. “I know that’s easy to say when it’s the goal that knocked you out but if you get done by a bit of play from the front players with a bit of quality, sometimes you have to take it and accept that. But we dealt with all that really well tonight and we get done by a really really poor decision, an awful decision that cost us. Because they were done, you could sense they were done on the pitch and from their bench. Physically, they were done.
“The fourth official is saying ‘foul’ as the game is going on because he sees the forward push him but the ref doesn’t listen to him. For such a big decision, it’s an awful decision.
“There is one team going to win it then. The performance that the players gave has to be up there with one of the best Irish performances because we were playing a team who are at a really high level, a lot of internationals. We kept them really quiet, created a lot of chances, the ‘keeper made two great saves at the end. Ultimately we got done by a terrible decision and that’s a hard one to take.
“We knew last week [in the first leg] wasn’t us, but there were loads of factors with the heat, getting a feel for them which is always the case in Europe. We felt we couldn’t press them the way we wanted to but tonight we could, we had them rattled early. I’m so proud of the players, and the performance they gave, but I’m gutted for them because we get done.”
