Larne suffered a narrow defeat to HJK Helsinki in their Champions League first qualifying round first leg tie in Finland.

It didn't bode well for Tiernan Lynch's side after they fell behind early on but they went on to produce an impressive display to keep the tie very much alive going into next week's return at Solitude (19th July, 7:30pm kick-off).

HJK were awarded a spot-kick as early as the third minute when Cian Bolger brought down Topi Keskinen, but leading scorer Bojan Radulovic's penalty had to be retaken despite sending Rohan Ferguson the wrong way. However, he kept his composure to find the bottom corner at the second attempt.

Larne came close to levelling after an hour when, from Dylan Sloan's free-kick, Leroy Millar headed just past the back post.

Millar threatened again with just over ten minutes remaining only to fire over under pressure from the defence.

HJK Helsinki: Öst, Raitala, Peltola, Tanaka, Soiri, Keskinen, Lingman, Tenho, Hetemaj, Radulovic, Hostikka subs Ollila (not used), Toivio (not used), Riski (not used), Kanellopoulos (not used), Iliev (not used), Kouassivi-Benissan (replaced Tanaka 64), Ylitolva (not used), Olusanya (replaced Hostikka 81), Meriluoto (not used), Ramula (not used)

Larne: Ferguson, Sloan, Want, Cosgrove, Donnelly, Millar, Glynn, Gordon, Bolger, Ryan, Bonis subs Omar (not used), Farquhar (not used), Kearns (replaced Sloan 83), O'Neill (not used), Westendorf (replaced Ryan 86), Maguire (not used), Smith (not used), Dowling (not used)