Joey O'Brien vows Shelbourne will turn ‘hurt into hunting' in €3.8m Conference League push after Rijeka Europa defeat
EURO PAIN Joey O'Brien vows Shelbourne will turn 'hurt into hunting' in €3.8m Conference League push after Rijeka Europa defeat
JOEY O'BRIEN said Shelbourne will turn their 'hurt into hunting' as they look to take their next chance to make the Conference League group stages.
Shelbourne could have done that last night had they seen off Rijeka in the Europa League, but the Croatians claimed a 4-3 aggregate win thanks to a last minute Ante Orec goal.
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Shelbourne head coach Joey O'Brien says his side will turn their 'hurt into hunting' after their Europa League defeat to Rijeka
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Ante Orec of Rijeka celebrates his late goal vs Shels, who will now head to a Europa Conference League playoff clash
The Reds now go into the Conference League play-off round where they will face the winners of tomorrow's tie between Linfield and Faroe Islands champions Vikingur.
And O'Brien insisted that the pain of the final minutes as Shelbourne scored a late penalty through Mipo Odubeko and came close to a winner will be used as motivation now.
He said: 'We saw them celebrating and we want that in two weeks' time. We'll use this hurt and turn that into hunger.
'We're bitterly disappointed but we're still in it and we want to go through.
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'When we scored the penalty, we had the momentum with us and we had a chance after it (through Milan Mbeng) and we didn't take ours and they took theirs.
'I felt they had a lot of chances but they didn't really trouble us too much and then the goal, it was a bit of quality. The second goal too, was a bit of quality.'
Orec - who had given away the penalty that got Shelbourne back in it - scored the winner that then confined Shelbourne to the Conference League play-off.
And O'Brien confirmed he will go to Belfast tomorrow to watch their potential opponents as Linfield look to overturn a 2-1 deficit from the away leg.
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Should they do it, it would mean an all-island tie worth €3.8 million to the winner just six weeks after Shels beat them in the Champions League in a €1.8 million tie.
Shels hope that next week's first leg will be in Tolka Park, though UEFA could insist on a switch to Tallaght.
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