Champions League hill gets steeper for Gary

The dreams that Bohermeen man Gary Rogers has of playing in the group stages of the Champions League took a setback at the Dublin Arena (Aviva Stadium) when Dundalk lost 0-2 to Legia Warsaw in the first-leg of the play-off round tonight.

Rogers was beaten by a controversial penalty in the second half and in the 94th minute Legia grabbed a second goal giving Dundalk a big task in the second leg next week.

Manager Stephen Kenny was very annoyed with the referee's decision to give Legia a second-half penalty while his side was denied a spot kick soon after.

For Gary Rogers now and his colleagues there will be next week's second leg and at this stage it looks like a place in the Europa League group stages will be the outcome – a consolation with a purse of around €5,500,000 to ease the disappointment.

There was a crowd of over 30,000 at the game tonight – apart from the Legia supporters, it represented a lot of new faces saw a League of Ireland club in action live for the first time.

Will they go to see a League game next weekend?