Champions League moves closer for Gary Rogers and his colleagues
What a result for Dundalk tonight in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League and the three Meath men - Gary Rogers from Bohermeen, Georgie Poynton from Bettystown and Noel Walsh from Kentstown.
The Louth club achieved a 3-0 second leg win against BATE Borisov to win 3-1 on aggregate against a team that was in the Group stages of the Champions League last season.
Two goals from David McMillan and one from Robbie Benson earned that priceless ticket for minnows Dundalk and sounded a real positive note for the League of Ireland with BATE sent into the Europa League.
To show the type of company Dundalk were in tonight there were also wins for teams like APOEL who scored three times in added time and Ludogorets prevailed in extra time as five teams booked their places in the UEFA Champions League play-offs. The other two are Plzen and Dinamo Zagreb.
Dundalk will now have a short break from Euro action until the play-off round on 16th /17th and 23rd /24th August, but they go to Galway on Friday night for a league game against Galway Utd.
NEXT UP
The play-off draw at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, starts at 12:00CET on Friday 5 August and will be streamed live on UEFA.com.
Who is in the draw?
There are 20 teams involved:10 in the champions route and 10 in the league route.
The clubs with the five highest coefficients in each route – this applies to both league and champions – will be seeded and drawn against the other five teams in that route. There will therefore be 10 ties in total.
DETAILS
Play-off entrants: Manchester City, Porto, Villarreal, Borussia Mönchengladbach, Roma
PLUS
Dundalk
Ludogorets
Plzen
Dinamo Zagreb
APOEL
Partizani/Salzburg
Astana/ Celtic
Astra Giurgiu/København
TrenÄín/Legia Warszawa
Olympiacos/Hapoel Beer-Sheva
Ajax/PAOK
Rostov/Anderlecht
Sparta Praha/Steaua BucureÅŸti
Shakhtar Donetsk/Young Boys
Fenerbahçe/ Monaco
Further second leg games will be played tomorrow.