Shamrock Rovers secured a well-deserved point against Djurgardens, however, Stephen Bradley wanted all three, as the Hoops manager felt that his side's play merited a victory in the Europa Conference League group stages.
Had the home side taken all the points against their esteemed Swedish opponents, Rovers would be sitting pretty atop Group F after the opening night of the latest phase of the tournament.
But as things stand, all four sides move into round two with one point apiece with none of the quartet able to break the deadlock, as Molde and Gent also ended scoreless in the group’s other game.
Playing in European group stage football for the first time since 2011, Rovers looked a touch off the pace in the opening ten minutes and were forced to absorb a lot more pressure than they would have hoped, with Sean Hoare to thank for making a vital goal-line clearance after five minutes of play.
But from there, the Hoops grew into the game and finished the half in the ascendancy, following it up after the break with a sustained period of pressure inside the final third of the visitors’ half, unfortunate not to break the deadline as Aaron Greene and Dylan Watts both came close to scoring.
Djurgardens, to their credit, also had their moments, most notably in the final 20 minutes of the game after their coach made a remarkable quadruple substitution to shake his side out of their slumber.
"We are frustrated that we haven’t won the game," said Bradley, speaking at the post-match press conference.
"Overall, we’re happy. There were certain areas we can improve for sure, but I felt we had the better chances in the game and overall, I thought we were very good."
The manager acknowledged that his side did not get off to the best of starts, coming under immediate pressure from the visitors, who attacked from the opening moments.
But Bradley felt that the problems were self inflicted, coming as a result of some negative passing from the home side.
"We created our own problems early on, our passing was too negative and when you do that against a team like them, they like to be aggressive in their press and we invited it early on.
"After that we penetrated through them a lot better, and killed their press, but early on we caused our own problems."
Rovers' best period of the game arrived straight after the break as the home side had Djurgardens pinned back inside their own penalty area for a ten-minute spell.
Bradley revealed that there was no specific reason other than it coming naturally to his trusted players, having managed the game well in the first half, despite the early wobbles.
"There was no half-time talk in terms of 'go and get at them’, we managed the first-half really well," he said. "We didn’t create a lot, but games like this, in Europe, you have to be tactically aware and not open.
"We knew coming into the game they have some good players in the attacking part of the pitch, but we felt we could cause them problems.
"We did that tonight. When we were right and aggressive in our positions, we caused them problems."
Djurgardens head coach, Thomas Lagerlof, said that he was happy enough with his side’s away point, but was also critical of his players, allowing Rovers to get on top throughout the middle part of the match, calling it a disaster, which led to the aforementioned quadruple substitution.
"The performance was not that good, the result is okay," said Lagerlof.
"Coming away from this stadium with one point is okay. Rovers are very good here and they almost never lose here, and a point is an okay result. We started the game okay and then it was as if it got a bit easy and we got sloppy, and then they are in the game.
"The first 25 minutes of the second half is a disaster. I am not taking anything from them, they were creating chances and they were forcing us to make bad decisions. We were really struggling for a while, and the last 20 minutes were better."
"We should have had a clear penalty," he added, in relation to an apparent foul on Haris Radetinac late in the game. "But we didn’t deserve anything more than we got today."
