Advertisement League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Behind the Lines Sportswriters discuss their careers and the work that inspires them. Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories Aaron McEneff.Laszlo Geczo/INPHO Freea brutal end Penalty shootout despair for Shamrock Rovers as European run brought to an end A depleted Rovers were beaten 5-4 on penalties after a 1-0 second-leg loss to Molde. 10.57pm, 20 Feb 2025 Share options Gavin Cooney reports from Tallaght Stadium Shamrock Rovers 0 Molde win 5-4 on penalties A EUROPEAN RUN on which Shamrock Rovers broke the mould but were ultimately left broken by Molde. The night ended with that near-ringing sound of total absence for Rovers, whose decimated, callow squad found they were stretched, ultimately, to breaking point. A clumsy defensive error after only nine minutes was enough to send the game to penalties, where only Aaron Greene missed, and so condemned Rovers to a brutal exit. Their feeling will be a weird mingling of regret and pride. The goal Rovers gave away was a calamity and they missed chances to avoid the spot-kick horror in the first place, but it seems churlish to overly-criticise an Irish team which ended a knockout European tie with the vast majority of the chances and with four teenagers on the pitch. Rovers somehow blundered amid an utterly dominant start and from there they played in thrilling surges, but they just could not find an equaliser to avoid penalties. Their chief regret will centre on the first-half moment in which Aaron McEneff’s dink over the goalkeeper travelled slowly enough to allow for a recovering defender to hack it off the line, while the referee and VAR decided not to give McEneff a penalty despite having been wiped out by the goalkeeper. Rovers had a one-goal advantage from the first leg but a glance down the team sheet will tell you that’s virtually all they had. Daniel Cleary and Dylan Watts were banned; Danny Mandroiu and Adam Matthews were injured. All of Jack Byrne, Trevor Clarke, and Rory Gaffney were injured too. Michael Noonan took on the hue of senior pro. He was one of two teenagers in the starting XI – Corey O’Sullivan was picked at left wing-back – and one of nine teenagers in the matchday squad. Also missing were many of the pillars of the first phase of this competition. Rovers scored 12 goals in the league phase, and the scorers of nine of those goals were unavailable tonight. The game was a sell-out, another small step to realising CEO John Martyn’s stated ambition to prove Tallaght Stadium is too small for Shamrock Rovers, and thus persuade South Dublin City Council to fill in the ground’s empty corners. Tonight’s wind might be enough to convince them to do it anyway. Advertisement Rovers kicked off and played into the teeth of an insolent wind, and so they cannily kept the ball on the ground. Rovers dominated the start to the extent that they had 87% of the ball across the first nine minutes…a stat that lousily flashed up on the TV broadcast as disaster struck. Molde knocked a long ball down the throat of the Rovers defence, which Pico Lopes misjudged beneath the wind. He allowed the ball to bounce, and Lee Grace then tried to hold off an attacker and allow the ball roll back for goalkeeper Ed McGinty. But amid the general hesitancy, McGinty tamely palmed the ball in front of him and to the feet of Magus Wolff Eikrem, who rolled the ball into the net first-time. It stung the crowd into silence. Wolff Eikrem celebrates his goal.Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO It also rocked the Rovers players off balance. Wolff Eikrem dropped between the lines and began orchestrating Rovers’ torment, forcing McGinty into a redemptive, splayed save one-on-one when he swept a delightful first-time pass around the corner for Fredrik Gulbrandsen. The wind could play in Rovers’ favour too, however: a through-ball held up perfectly for Noonan’s stride, but he was forced too wide around the goalkeeper and his shot came from too acute an angle to score. Thrown off kilter by the Molde goal, Rovers’ steadily found equilibrium. A slick one-two with Noonan set Graham Burke sprinting in behind the Molde defence, and he chose the right option, weighing a perfect pass left for Aaron McEneff, who dinked the ball with his right foot over the onrushing goalkeeper. McEneff was clattered by the ‘keeper and had to look agonisingly from the turf as Martin Linnes sprinted back to hook the ball away off his goal line. Rovers’ furiously appealed for their reprieve: surely McEneff had been taken out by the goalkeeper? The game was paused for a VAR review of the incident…and bewilderingly the referee was told to play on. Nothing to see here. Or, at least, something to see here but sure let’s pretend we didn’t see it. (Irish football has suffered greater refereeing travesties, to be fair: the presence in the comfy seats tonight of referee’s assessor Martin Hansson, the official on the night of Henry’s handball in Paris, was a reminder of that.) Martin Hansson at Tallaght Stadium, in front of another couple of interested spectators: Johnny Sexton and Damien Duff.Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO Rovers kept pressing, and Noonan was inches from getting his studs on a McEneff pull-back from the endline, to which Tallaght rose in awful hope and fell in despair. Rovers started the second-half slowly but exploded into light at the hour mark. McEneff returned Graham Burke’s favour by floating a perfect cross to him at the back post, but the time between Burke’s touch and volley was sufficient for the outstanding Linnes to recover and block. Rovers’ then almost pressed their way into another goal: Noonan forced Isak Amundsen into a horrible backpass onto which Rovers latched, but Noonan dallied on the ball in the penalty area and went to ground in a sandwich between Amundsen and goalkeeper. The referee was unmoved, and this time VAR wasn’t interested either. There were times Noonan took the game to Molde single-handedly, stomping insurgently about the place like Wayne Rooney. There was one moment of almost cartoonish terror: Noonan took the ball back to goal, knocked it past Amundsen and then accelerated around him. The defender’s only hope was to haul Noonan to ground before he made it to the box. Rovers continued to smother Molde, attacking as if extra-time would be as bad as immediate exit. Given their callow bench, that may have been the case. O’Sullivan played a brilliant back-flick to tee Burke up in the box, who saw his shot beaten away by the goalkeeper. Rovers ultimately did have to go to extra-time, but the reward for their tenacity was to face 10 men. Amundsen, booked earlier for his foul on Noonan, bafflingly dragged McEneff to the ground to earn the kind of yellow card they put in the guide book. Though Rovers made just one sub in 90 minutes, they had a fitness advantage over a Molde side whose season doesn’t start until 30 March. Rovers had fresh legs in every sense of the phrase: another 16-year-old, Victor Ozhianuna, replaced Josh Honohan. He looks another of Rovers’ bafflingly langorous young talents, as he skated down the left wing with ease. Noonan, meanwhile, remained the major threat stooping to head McEneff’s cross narrowly wide of the post. The second-half of extra time was punctuated by the sight of Molde players collapsing to the ground, writhing with cramp, as they clung on for penalties. The demands eventually caught up with Gary O’Neill too, and so Bradley turned to Teenager Number Four: John O’Sullivan (19) came on with four minutes of extra-time remaining. For all their dominance, Rovers didn’t carve out a clear chance amid Molde’s grim endgame, squandering set pieces won by their remarkable youngsters. Those youngsters were equally remarkable on the spot, with all of Noonan, O’Sullivan, and Matt Healy scoring. McEneff did too, but Greene scuffed his effort and it skidded into the goalkeeper’s arms. Molde, by contrast, were perfect, with McGinty hardly getting close to any of their penalties. And so Rovers’ quixotic, paradigm-shifting journey ends with a horribly clichéd ending. It feels all the worse for it. Shamrock Rovers: Ed McGinty; Danny Grant; Josh Honohan (Victor Ozhianuna, 104′), Roberto Lopes (captain), Lee Grace; Cory O’Sullivan; Matt Healy, Aaron McEneff, Gary O’Neill; Graham Burke (Aaron Greene, 88′), Michael Noonan Molde: Jacob Karlstrom; Martin Linnes (Mads Enggard, 65′), Isak Amundsen, Eirik Haugan, Halldor Stenevik; Mats Moler Daehli (Martin Bjornbak, 82′), Emil Breivik; Kristian Eriksen, Magnus Wolff Eikrem (captain) (Eirik Hestad, 90′), Markus Kaasa (Daniel Daga, 96′); Fredrik Gulbrandsen (Frederik Ihler, 65′) Referee: Tasos Sidiropoulos (Greece) Attendance: 9,533 Gavin Cooney View 7 comments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “Penalty shootout despair for Shamrock Rovers as European run brought to an end ”. Recipient's Email Feedback on “Penalty shootout despair for Shamrock Rovers as European run brought to an end ”. 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