Europa League: Late goals deprive Dundalk of first point as Rapid Vienna grab home victory
- Published
Patrick Hoban gave Dundalk an early lead
Late goals from Maximilian Hofmann and Yusuf Demir denied Dundalk their first Europa League point of the campaign as Rapid Vienna secured a 4-3 home win.
An 82nd-minute penalty from substitute David McMillan had looked to have earned a hard-fought 2-2 draw for the League of Ireland side.
Hofmann and Demir then struck before McMillan added another penalty.
Patrick Hoban gave Dundalk a seventh-minute lead, with Dejan Ljubicic and Kelvin Arase putting the hosts 2-1 up.
It was a third defeat from three Group B games for Filippo Giovagnoli's men after they lost at home to Molde and away to Arsenal.
A goalkeeping error led to Dundalk taking the lead in the seventh minute after good build-up play down their right hand side through Sean Hoare and Sean Gannon.
The ball was played back to captain Chris Shields and his searching cross found Hoban, whose header squeezed past goalkeeper Paul Gatler, who looked set to make a save.
The home side's equaliser on 22 minutes also came courtesy of poor goalkeeping, with skipper Dejan Ljubicic making the most of not being closed down to blast a long-range shot on target. It was hit with power but was very close to visiting keeper Aaron McCarey who let it sneak in off the crossbar.
Dundalk captain Shields delivered the cross for Hoban's opener
Vienna began to seize control of the match though looked vulnerable at the back, and Dundalk came close again through Michael Duffy before McCarey produced great reactions and strong hands to keep out a back-post volley from Christoph Knasmullner.
McCarey, deputising for regular goalkeeper Gary Rogers, made another fine save from Thorsten Schick on 79 minutes, but the ball fell to Arase who found the open net with a diving header to give Vienna the lead.
McMillan was fouled in the box by fellow substitute Mario Sonnleitner and scored from the resulting spot-kick to make it 2-2 as the visitors pressed for what would have been their first point in the group.
However, they were let down again by McCarey as he came off his line for a cross and failed to collect the ball, allowing Hoffman to head home on 87 minutes.
Demir found the bottom corner with an accurate low drive before McMillan struck his second penalty with the final kick of the match.