Athlone Town kept their European campaign alive with a 2-0 win over Serbian champions Crvena Zvezda in Enschede, Netherlands.
While the Midlanders already knew that they could not progress further in the Women's Champions League after Wednesday's second qualifying round semi-final defeat to Iceland's Breidablik, victory in the third-place play-off on Saturday afternoon against their Serbian opponents means Colin Fortune's side will now go into the inaugural Women's Europa Cup.
Goals in each half from Kelly Brady and Roisin Molloy made the difference as the current SSE Airtricity Women's Premier Division leaders booked their place in a two-legged tie in the first qualifying round of the Europa Cup that will be played next month.
Athlone made a slow start against Crvena Zvezda as the club, also known as Red Star Belgrade, began brightly and almost took the lead when Sofija Sremcevic forced a save from Town keeper Megan Plaschko from close range in the fifth minute.
Soon after Red Star went close again when Nikolina Hadzibabic hit the post from distance.
However, Athlone broke the deadlock against the run of play on 12 minutes as Maddison Gibson pounced on a loose pass from Red Star keeper Jovana Petrovic and set up striker Kelly Brady to score.
The goal allowed Fortune's team to settle and just three minutes later Brady almost doubled the lead only to see her strike from outside the box rattle the crossbar, while they also had a goal ruled out when Brady was adjudged to have been interfering with play, standing in an offside position, after Molloy had found the net.
Athlone would essentially make sure of victory six minutes after the break and it would be an unmarked Molloy who headed in a left-wing Gibson cross to make it 2-0.
The Westmeath side saw out the contest and can look forward to continuing their European campaign in the new secondary competition, with the first leg of their Europa Cup qualifying round tie to be played on the week of 10-11 September.
Athlone Town: Megan Plaschko; Kellie Brennan, Kayleigh Shine, Shauna Brennan; Natalie McNally, Hannah Waesch, Kate Slevin, Alexis Strickland (Sarah Rice '89); Kelly Brady, Roisin Molloy, Maddison Gibson (c).
