Dundalk ride their luck to leave Gibraltar level

Dundalk survived the heat and a number of major scares to claim a scoreless draw against Bruno's Magpies in their Europa Conference League first qualifying round first-leg tie at Victoria Stadium.

Stephen O’Donnell’s side were well on top against the Gibraltar outfit in the opening half and should have taken the lead through Daniel Kelly.

However, Alfonso Cortijo’s side grew into the game, which was played in 31 degrees of sunshine, and passed up a number of big chances either side of half-time to potentially take a lead to Oriel Park next Thursday.

In the end, they couldn’t find a breakthrough. Dundalk will be the happier of the two sides with the result and will be hopeful of finishing the job on home soil next week.

Both sides had chances from range in the early stages with Archie Davies firing well over for Dundalk on three minutes before José Giraldez tried to catch Nathan Shepperd out with a shot from 40 yards out a minute later that trickled harmlessly wide.

The visitors should have hit the front on 13 minutes, however, when Kelly’s cross from the right picked out the inrushing Johannes Yli-Kokko, who saw the ball drift just wide after coming off his shoulder.

The Louth men were left scratching their heads how they didn’t break the deadlock 10 minutes later when Patrick Hoban slipped Ryan O’Kane in on goal. The teenager was denied by Jaylan Hankins, who then made an even better save with the follow-up to spring up and block Kelly’s effort from the rebound with his feet.

There was a brief scare for Dundalk in the aftermath of that double chance as Bruno’s Magpies broke upfield with Jack Storer somehow failing to hit the target from close range with a chance that would have been ruled out anyway due to the offside flag