Omonia could play in Ireland

Shamrock Rovers will face Cypriot or Estonian opposition for a €3m place in the Conference League group stages if they can get past Albania’s Teuta Durres.

The champions are in a section of the draw confined to league winners knocked out of the Champions League or Europa League and today’s playoff draw emphasised that Stephen Bradley’s charges have a terrific opportunity.

They will fancy their chances against Teuta although Bradley feels they are a better team than some recent results may suggest.

If Rovers can scale that hurdle, they face the losers of the Europa League tie between Omonia Nicosia and Flora Tallinn.

Both of those sides won their first Champions League fixture but were then knocked out of the second round and teams who make it that far get a crack at the Europa League too.

Omonia suffered a 3-0 aggregate defeat to Dinamo Zagreb to go out of the Champions League, while Flora were on the wrong side of a 3-1 scoreline against Legia Warsaw.

The Cypriots are just coming out of pre-season, though, whereas Flora are midway through the campaign and the benefit of those fixtures would make Omonia the favourites to advance.

It wouldn’t be a leap to suggest that the Rovers preference would be to face the Estonians given that Dundalk were capable of knocking Flora’s big rivals Levadia out of the Europa League.

Bradley’s side have serious work to do to earn that opportunity but their potential route again advertises the benefit of the champions path for the top teams in smaller countries.