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Wednesday, 17 July, 2002, 21:19 GMT 22:19 UK

Barry trounced by Skonto

Skonto Riga 5-0 Barry Town
Champions League first qualifying round, first leg

Barry Town player-manager Kenny Brown said he was embarrassed by his side's dismal display in their humiliating 5-0 defeat against Latvian champions Skonto Riga.

Four unanswered second-half goals by Skonto all but ended Barry's hopes of emulating last year's feat of reaching the second qualifying round of the Champions League.

The League of Wales champions failed to created one meaningful scoring effort, and face an uphill task at Jenner Park next week to claw their back into the tie.


" I am beginning to wonder if my squad is good enough for European football "
Barry boss Kenny Brown

"My players let me down out there," said Brown, who played for 82 minutes as a sweeper in the Dragons defence.

"We needed leaders in the team but I couldn't find any. At half-time we were only losing 1-0 yet the dressing room was so quiet.

"I feel we prepared correctly for this game and spent good money on going out to Latvia early to acclimatise - our chief executive Kevin Green has spent hard-earned cash.

"Now this happens. I am beginning to wonder if my squad is good enough for European football.

Hiding

"It's no good players performing week in, week out in the League of Wales.

"They have to have enough quality for a Euro challenge. This defeat is definitely worse than the 8-0 beating we had at Porto last year.

"At least they were a decent side - on this occasion we simply accepted the hiding Skonto dished out on us."

Barry went into the interval relatively satisfied with their performance after restricting the home side to a single goal from Vladimirs Kolesnicenko after 13 minutes.

But individual errors and a lack of concentration allowed Skonto to run away with things after the break.

Goals in pairs

The most frustrating aspect for Brown was the timing of the goals.

The second and third goals, scored by Mihails Zemlinskis and Levan Korgalidze, arrived within three minutes of each other just after the hour mark.

And the fourth and fifth strikes from Audrius Ksanavicius and Aleksandrs Jelisejevs came on 87 and 89 minutes.

Remarkably, the final three goals were all scored by substitutes.

Before the match, Brown said the best form of defence would be attack.

His players will certainly have plenty of attacking work to do in next Wednesday's second leg if they hope to prolong their European adventure.


Skonto Riga: Pavlovs, Isakovs, Zemlinskis, Samusiovas, Morozs, Blagonadezdins, Dedura, Menteshashvili, Verpakovskis, Kolesnicenko, Miholaps.
Subs: Dorosevs, Zakresevskis, Buitkus, Jelisejevs, Korgalidze, Ksanavicius, Kalnins.

Barry Town: S Rayner, G Lloyd, K Brown, S Morgan, L Phillips, R Kennedy, A York, John French, T Ramasut, I Bishop, J Moralee.
Subs: D Leigh, L Jarman, D Toomey, N Cotterrall, J Jenkins, L Pratt, N Burke.

Referee: Lubomir Pucek (Czech Rep)


Uefa Champions League First Qualifying Round First Leg

Torpedo Kutaisi 5-2 B36 Torshavn
Tampere United 0-4 Pyunik
Skonto Riga 5-0 Barry Town
Hibernians 2-2 Shelbourne
FBK Kaunas 2-3 Dinamo Tirana
Zeljeznicar Sarajevo 3-0 Akranes
Sheriff Tiraspol 2-1 Zhenis Astana
F91 Dudelange 1-1 Vardar Skopje
Portadown 0-0 Belshina Bobruisk
FC Flora Tallinn 0-0 Apoel Nicosia


Related to this story:
Barry recruit Bishop (05 Jul 02 | League of Wales) Dragons face Latvian trip (21 Jun 02 | League of Wales)


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