St Patrick’s Athletic boosted their chances of progressing further in the Europa League after beating Krylya Sovetov to 1-0 in Richmond Park on Thursday.

Declan ‘Fabio’ O’Brien scored the only goal of the game on 70 minutes to ensure the Super Saints came out of the first leg of this Third Round Qualifier with an early advantage in the tie.

That strike was the third goal that O’Brien has scored for the club, which keeps up his record of scoring in every European appearance since joining on loan from Dundalk.

The Inchicore outfit did well to keep their Russian opponents at bay in the first-half and will take a lot of positives from this performance as they prepare for the second leg out in Samara.

Jeff Kenna’s side have grown in confidence in recent weeks with last week’s victory over Valletta FC of Malta attributing to the new-found swagger that they have injected to their play.

Krylya looked the more likely team to score in the first-half with Leilton, Vladislav Ignatev, and Evgeniy Savin all coming close, but the Saints defence stood tall.

There were few opportunities for the home crowd to bellow out the famous ‘Richmond Roar’, but they nearly had something to cheer about inside the opening two minutes.

Stuart Byrne managed to sneak in behind the visitor’s defence, although his shot went well wide and failed to test goalkeeper Eduardo Lobos.

The Russian Premier League side were constantly pushing for that crucial away goal, although their 3-4-3 formation did them no favours as St Pat’s used Damian Lynch as an extra midfielder to break up their attacks.

Even with captain Ruslan Adzhindzhal and former Celtic midfielder Jiri Jarosik showing some nice touches when roaming forward, but they produced few shots that were that threatening.

St Pat’s were a different team after the break with O’Brien working hard up front and he was presented with an excellent chance to break the deadlock after beating the offside trap, but there was a lack of power in his shot.

Kenna’s men continued to storm forward and Bobby Ryan was next to try his luck when he curled just wide after Jason Gavin teed up the ex-Shelbourne winger.

Then the goal arrived with Byrne spreading play out to Ryan Guy, who sped forward and slid the perfect pass into O’Brien. The clever striker had made a run across the back of the opposition’s defence and took his time before burying his shot into the back of the net.

Gary Rogers pulled off a fine save to deny Vladislav Kulik from a free-kick just outside the box to ensure that he kept a clean sheet, while Guy was unlucky not to score in the dying minutes of the game.

The Saints did what Krylya didn’t and took their best chance in front of goal. They will now hope to finish the job off next week over in Russia, but this result and performance will not be forgotten in a hurry by the St Pat’s fans.

St Patrick’s Athletic: Rogers, Gavin, Harris, Partridge, Stevens, Guy, Lynch, Byrne (Dempsey 72), O’Connor, O’Brien, Fitzpatrick (B Ryan HT).
Substitutes Not Used: Clarke, Maher, Haverty, Cawley, Leech.

Krylya Sovetov: Lobos, Shishkin, Belozervo, Jarosik, Leilton, Bober, Kalachev, Ivanov (Kulik 77), Adzhindzhal, Ignatev, Savin.
Substitutes Not Used: Budakov, Taranov, Budylin, Pesegov, Shustikov, Razdelkin.

Referee: Zsolt Szabo (Hungary)