The foul on Karl Sheppard that earned Shamrock Rovers a penalty against Partizan Belgrade looked a little dubious, even to his own teammates!
Sheppard was brought down in the penalty area by Partizan ‘keeper Radisa Ilic in the second half of extra time and after the referee pointed the spot, Stephen O’Donnell slotted calmly to the net to give the Hoops an unassailable lead over the Serbian side.
Replays showed that although there was contact between the pair, it was minimal, but Sheppard made sure the referee knew he was tripped and flung himself theatrically to the ground.
In the midst of the celebrations after the game, Sheppard was ‘twaped’, with his cheeky teammates posting on his Twitter account that he had indeed indulged in some simulation to earn the spot-kick.
As Sheppard deleted the content of the tweet shortly afterwards, we don’t know exactly what was said, but he was quick to defend himself, posting: “I was twaped I didn’t dive I was taken out but happiest moment ever.”
Sheppard refused to name the architect behind the rogue Twitter post, but he continued to express his happiness with later tweets such as “Wooooooooooooo” and “Thanks for the messages tweeps seriously everyone thank you it still hasn’t sunk in what we have done time to get out heads on Monday now!!”.
In case you were on another planet last night, the Hoops made history by becoming the first Irish team to qualify for the group stages of a European competition after defeating Partizan Belgrade 2-1 after extra time (3-2 on aggregate).
They were helped by one of the finest goals you are likely to see from Pat Sullivan and will learn of their group stage opponents when the Europa League draw is made later today.
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