St Mirren earn draw in Iceland to take back to Paisley for second-leg

St Mirren have left Iceland with a draw to take back to Paisley for the second-leg of their Conference League qualifier.

Stephen Robinson’s men travelled to Reykjavik for their first European game in over 30 years to take on Valur on Thursday.

And they earned a 0-0 draw in an eventful game meaning any win in front of their own fans next week will be enough to see their journey continue.

The Saints almost took an early lead through Toyosi Olusanya who forced a brilliant save from the Valur goalkeeper on the ten minute mark.

Just minutes later Balacombe was called into action up the other end when he denied a low effort from Haraldsson.

Stephen Robinson was forced into an early change when Caolan Boyd-Munce went down injured and was replaced by Dennis Adeniran on the 15th minute mark.

Olusanya came close again after meeting a cross from Jadon Brown but his effort was just wide of the post and Brown forced the goalkeeper to make a save from a close-range header soon after.

It was end-to-end at the end of the first-half and Sigurdur Egill Larusson blasted just wide for the hosts before Oisin Smyth came close again for the Paisley side.

But it remained 0-0 going into the break with both sides left ruing a string of missed chances.

It was the same story in the second half with both goalkeepers kept busy with a flurry of chances at either end.

Idowu came close but was denied by the keeper before former Everton and Swansea midfielder Gylffi Sigurdsson came close for Valur late on.

The home side were then reduced to ten-men for the last ten-minutes when Aron Jóhannsson was shown a red-card for denying a goal-scoring opportunity.