Flora Tallinn 4 Shamrock Rovers 2
The result that Shamrock Rovers' defending fully deserved, and Stephen Bradley's team now retain the slimmest chance of reaching the Europa Conference League come next Thursday's second leg at Tallaght stadium.
Flora's all-Estonian squad must silence an expanded 3,500 crowd that will demand the last Irish club in Europe give a better account of themselves than this sloppy showing at the Lillekula stadium.
What will haunt Rovers more than the result is how Flora harried them into error after error. All four goals were avoidable, but the basics deserted so many of established players, much like their Champions League exit at the hands of Slovan Bratislava back in July.
“We made mistakes that I haven’t seen this team make before,” said a perplexed Bradley. “When you do that you don’t deserve to win.”
They cannot blame a lack of experience nor gaping standards as Uefa rankings convinced us pre-match that the Estonian champions were inferior to their Irish counterparts. However, in Henrik Ojamaa and Martin Miller, Flora had the superior individuals on view.
“I think we respected them, but it is very, very hard to win games when you make individual errors like we made. We have given away four terrible goals.”
Nobody was safe from the press as veteran defender Joey O’Brien was repeatedly targeted and exposed on the right side of three centre halves.
Flora's opening goal was a piece of art in four brush strokes. Rovers attempted to play short from goalkeeper Alan Mannus, as is their philosophy, but O'Brien was hemmed in and offered one option; a speculative pass up the right side line to Ronan Finn.
It never made it that far. Instead, Miller's swinging leg found Ojamaa whose quick touch had Konstanin Vassiljev turning to draw five defenders before calmly rolling the ball towards the penalty spot where Sergei Zenjov passed into the net.
Four touches, 1-nil, and not so much as a glove laid upon the hosts.
Quick break
The second was worse. On a quick break, following Graham Burke's speculative shot, Rauno Sappinen put O'Brien on his back, before cutting back for Miller to beat a retreating Finn to the punch.
Again, it was stark how routinely Flora were tearing Rovers apart.
Burke kept the campaign afloat with a venomous left foot strike to make it 2-1 just before half-time after a corner pin-balled to him on the edge of the box.
Mannus proved equally heroic when denying Sappinen on 53 minutes, but the Estonian striker was living off silver service as Rovers kept coughing up possession in midfield. Ricardo Lopes manfully clung to his coattails.
At least Danny Mandroiu – who was surprisingly benched despite a match winning contribution in the previous round – came on and hit the post.
Sappinen appeared to settle the tie when Mannus could only parry Zenjov's shot, but a looping header from the Celtic-bound Liam Scales made it 3-2 with five minutes remaining.
For 90 seconds an unforgettable escape seemed possible, but Rovers held their most inept defensive meltdown until the end as Miller belted home a fourth after Sappinen made it to the end line and cut back once again.
“The fourth was really poor,” Bradley conceded. “When we score to make 3-2 we were telling the players to be nice and calm, there are only a few minutes left and at 3-2 we are taking them back to Tallaght, and really, really happy.
“It is another individual mistake. We have a good press on, we have them where we want them, and Sean [Hoare] jumps out and allows the boy to turn. Again, this is very, very rare but it happened and we got punished. It is really, really frustrating.”
Last goal
In the same breath Bradley refused to lay blame at one defender’s feet when all of them were culpable.
“I actually thought Sean Hoare’s was one of the best performances you will see from an Irish player in Europe. He made a mistake for the last goal. Other than that he was outstanding.”
Frustrating and out of character, perhaps, but on two occasions this season Rovers have faltered when European peers turned the screw. There is good reason why individual errors like these never occur when the stakes are far, far less.
"We will be fine," Bradley added. "We had this after Bratislava – it was half time and we were 2-0 down. We know what we have to do to win the tie. We have been here before."
Such words indicate that Bradley will not make any dramatic alternations to a settled system, although the return of injured duo Lee Grace and Aidomo Emakhu does seem essential. Especially the teenage Emakhu as an early goal in Tallaght would change the narrative.
But on this evidence a continental winter looks beyond Shamrock Rovers.
FLORA TALLINN: Igonen; Lilander, Purg (Tougjas 90), Seppik, Kallaste; Zenjov, Vassijev, Soomets, Miller, Ojamaa; Sappinen (Alliku 89).
SHAMROCK ROVERS: Mannus; Finn, O'Brien, Lopes, Hoare, Scales; Towell (Mandroiu 67), Watts, O'Neill, Burke; Gaffney (Greene 53).
Referee: Yevhenii Aranovskiy (Ukraine).
