Cork, whose magnificent exploits of last season in Europe, were not given the kudos they deserved, followed up their excellent first round aggregate victory over Ekranes, the champions of Lithuania, with a game performance in Stockholm’s Rasunda Stadium, which earned them a 1-1 draw and of course an away goal which may prove vital to the final outcome of this fixture.

Manager Damien Richardson, who in his pre match press conference was critical of the support provided by the National Association to Eircom League Clubs in Europe, made two changes to the Cork side that played Waterford United last weekend. Goalkeeper Michael Devine, who was injured in the first round encounter with Ekranes, returned in place of Mark McNulty while former Coventry City Starlet, Roy O’Donovan came in for the suspended George O’Callaghan. The young O’Donovan, who has been called up to The Republic of Ireland U21 squad for next week’s meeting with Northern Ireland in Lurgan, was celebrating his twentieth birthday.

Cork got off to the best possible start, when after eight minutes a long clearance from centre back Dan Murphy was collected on the half way line by Neale Fenn and the former Tottenham Hotspur man played a speedy one two with O’Donovan and fired a low drive into the bottom corner of the Djurgarden net. This was Fenn’s sixth goal in his last eight appearances and this prolific scoring rate is more than compensating for the loss of Kevin Doyle to Reading.

In what was a surprisingly open first half, a number of half chances presented themselves at both ends of the pitch, most notably a header from a Swedish striker which just grazed the crossbar and a further shot into the side netting. On forty minutes, Liam Kearney, who spent a number of years at Nottingham Forest, had his shot blocked by a last ditch defensive tackle.

The second half was in its’ infancy when goalkeeper Devine was cautioned for alleged time wasting. As the game progressed, matters were fairly even with the hosts enjoying the greater share of possession but Cork defending with calm authority and resolution.

As the match approached its’ latter stages, the home side raised the tempo in search of the equaliser and the City defence came under increasing pressure. Devine was called into action when he splendidly tipped over a stinging drive and minutes later he again came to the rescue with another fine save after his tiring defence had been breached.

With ten minutes remaining on the clock, Djurgarden substitute Patrick Amoah scored the equaliser when his shot struck a City defender and was deflected out of the reach of Devine to trickle over the line. In the final minutes, City almost suffered disaster when another speculative shot took a deflection but this time Devine managed to scramble across his line to turn it away.

Once again, Cork City have performed heroically in Europe and it must be hoped that they can complete what is still a very difficult task when they host the Swedish club in the second leg at Turners Cross on Thursday 25 August 2005.