Pride, shock and anger were the three emotions seeping out of Drogheda United boss Kevin Doherty on a difficult day on and off the pitch for the Louth club.
Shock at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling that ended their European ambitions, pride at how his players responded to that devastating blow hours before kick-off to take the lead against Shamrock Rovers and his anger at the free-kick call that led to the away side levelling things up just before the break before Aaron Greene secured a 2-1 win in the second half.
The contentious decision came when Andy Quinn was penalised for an apparent handball spotted by assistant referee Emmett Dynan – Graham Burke driving the setpiece low to the corner – and Doherty admitted that he had to temper his true thoughts on the decision when speaking to the media.
"You're playing the best team in the country by a mile, you’re coming out and playing like that after the day that we’ve had, such pride and b*lls and everything that our lads had and for that to happen," he told RTÉ Sport.
"I have to be very careful, I don’t want to go personal or individual about this, anybody with a pair of eyes that are working could see what happened here tonight.
"That result was taken away from us tonight. Let the whole country and social media and everyone else look at it because they will be the judge, jury and executioner for these things that happen because nothing else seems to happen in these games," he later added.
There was only one topic at Sullivan and Lambe Park pre-match and that was CAS denying the club a spot in Tuesday’s UEFA Conference League draw due to their multi-club-ownership rules.
Last Friday, Doherty had spoken of his confidence that the decision would go their way, so he was startled when news filtered through that they had lost their case as he made his way to the game.
"I wasn’t bull****ing, everything I said on Friday still applies today, every single word I said in that interview on Friday still applies today.
"There’s no doubt it’s disappointing... a tough day, yeah."
Even with Monday's double blow, Doherty promised that Drogheda’s story wouldn’t be written in the boardroom and a tightknit group would rebound.
DROGHEDA OUT OF EUROPE AFTER CAS RULING
"One thing you can certainly say is we’re going for Europe again next year. You can see that it’s something we want to push on.
"It’s something you want to do, you want to progress year on year and I think the jump we’ve made this year without going mad as well, it’s evident that we haven’t been going mad. We haven't gone out and brought in ten lads.
"We’ve done it the right way, we’ve done it with the players that it means so much (to).
"The calibre of player coming into us, hungry and they want to play, want to win."
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