Rory Gaffney: Ghosts of past European pain key to Shamrock Rovers' group stage feat

Rory Gaffney believes learning the lessons from the pain of past European shortfalls was crucial in Shamrock Rovers ending an 11-year wait for a return to group stage football.

The striker was instrumental in the North Macedonian capital Skopje on Tuesday night, scoring the opening goal of the Europa League third qualifying round second leg for the Hoops as they won 2-1 to seal a 5-2 aggregate win over KF Shkupi.

The result guarantees group stage European football for just the fourth time ever for a League of Ireland club with a spot secured in the Europa Conference League at a minimum.

And Stephen Bradley's SSE Airtricity League leaders can even still reach the Europa League group stages if they can win their play-off tie against Hungarian record champions Ferencvaros.

Last season, Shamrock Rovers missed out on the Conference League group stages after losing the play-off round to Estonian side Flora Tallinn and Gaffney said manager Bradley had used that disappointment as a warning for his squad this season.

"When he has gone through video clips, he has spoken about how teams in Europe have punished them at times and he's always looking at the bigger picture," he said.

"He obviously has been thinking about this and they've been building this over the last number of years and thankfully it's come off this year."

Gaffney acknowledged that Shkupi gave them a tough challenge to overcome despite the three-goal swing in Rovers' favour.

"It's a great achievement. It was a nervy night and thank God we were so good in the first half last week that we got the two goals because definitely over both games, 5-2 flatters us a bit," he said.

"I don't think they were as bad as the scoreline suggests and were very dangerous going forward and it