A CRUEL end to a night which promised and meant so much. For Bohemians, the pain of this defeat will be hard to forget, because the consequences of conceding a late goal to end their Champions League campaign could have serious implications for the future of this football club.

Like Tallaght on Monday, the visitors stole it in the 86th minute. But this was no friendly. The hosts were four minutes from the financial boost they need to maintain their status at the top of the Irish football tree.

The horrible irony is that Dalymount hasn't rocked like this on a Bohs' night for some time. To coin the old cliché, if it was like this every week, then the stakes wouldn't have been so high.

Disaster struck at a moment when there was no time to respond. They had defended expertly for most of the game. Sure, Red Bull owned possession, but they had failed to get a clear sight on goal. Then, they were gifted it. Mark Rossiter misjudged the flight of a hopeful punt forward, the kind Bohs had been mopping up all evening.

Brian Murphy, whose commanding performance won the praise of watching Irish goalkeeping coach Alan Kelly, had come to collect a relatively simple defensive header for Rossiter, but the full-back allowed the ball to slide away from him, and the firm bounce off the rain-sodden turf gave Patrik Jezek a simple task to nod the ball over the stranded Murphy. There are few worse ways to lose a match of such magnitude.

Red Bull's bench, who had failed to endear the hosts with an attitude that had been interpreted as condescending, celebrated like they had won the lottery. Therefore, pleasantries after the final whistle were far from cordial, with Pat Fenlon and his assistant Liam O'Brien sharing angry words with the visiting boss, Huub Stevens.

Those storm clouds had been brewing. Earlier, it was the heavy pre-match rain which concerned Bohs officials, worried that their hopes for a strong walk-up crowd were optimistic.

Thankfully, they were wrong as by kick-off a healthy crowd had descended on the venue. Certainly, the turnout was far higher than any Bohs game here in recent years.

The importance had been spelled out in the preliminaries with the survival of proper full-time football at the club essentially revolving around the outcome of this encounter, no matter what way you dress it up.

Naturally, the tension in the air was palpable. Within 33 seconds, Red Bull forced their first corner and there was a collective holding of breath until the danger was cleared.

It was going to be one of those nights.

The visitors had made five changes from the team which was criticised for only drawing on their own turf last Wednesday, with three of the switches enforced. Bohs, on the other hand, stuck with the same starting XI that received credit for their endeavours and adopted the familiar 4-5-1 formation which Pat Fenlon prefers for such occasions.

With Red Bull opting for a lone frontman as well in a 4-2-3-1 line-out, it was of little surprise that there was a cageyness about the early exchanges. Needing a scoreless draw to progress, the question was whether Fenlon would instruct his charges to sit back and contain.

On first glance, their set-up was defensive, but considering the space being afforded to their rearguard, full-backs Mark Rossiter and Conor Powell were given time on the ball to rove forward, with the latter particularly prominent before the interval, forcing visiting stopper Douglas Gustafsson into action with an intended cross that morphed into a dangerous shot.

Prior to that, in the 11th minute, the hosts actually could also have taken the lead, when a clever set-piece manoeuvre culminated with a slightly off balance Jason Byrne looping Killian Brennan's free-kick marginally over the crossbar.

In the main, though, it was a case of avoiding silly errors when it came to the retention of possession.

At times, Bohs laboured when it wasn't necessary; with the Red Bull bench actively instructing their midfield to press further up the park. The experienced Joseph Ndo was composed and capable enough to hold onto the ball, but others around lacked the same know-how.

Before the break, Stevens' expensively assembled troops didn't create many openings from their own invention. Instead, their threatening moments stemmed from Bohs' mistakes as a Brennan slip in the 16th minute set off a chain of events which concluded with a Christoph Leitgeb effort being deflected behind for a corner. Another Paul Keegan aberration later on nearly caused similar pain, while the closest the big spending Salzburg came to taking an advantage into their tiny dressing room was a Milan Dudic header which contained a bit too much height.

Otherwise, Murphy -- who had commanded his area with authority and displayed excellent distribution which Kelly pinpointed in particular -- went for his half-time rest with no heroics to speak of.

The Waterford man would be busier in the second half, called into action eight minutes after the resumption to pinch the ball away from Marc Janko after Keegan and Brian Shelley got in each other's way. In the minutes after, he was alert to gather a series of stray Red Bull deliveries.

Their Dutch manager, Stevens -- a UEFA Cup winning boss with Schalke 04 in 1997 -- who had spoken with a dislikeable confidence in the preliminaries, was clearly growing a little flustered, making a pair of quickfire substitutions around the hour mark with the clock weighted against them.

Masterful

It was so far so good for the hosts, who hoped the Austrians would eventually start to leave gaps if the status quo remained for long enough. The first evidence of that came in the 65th minute when the meandering, yet masterful, Ndo teed up Jason Byrne who shot straight at Gustafsson.

Yet it was inevitable that the final quarter of the game would largely take place in the Bohs' half, with Red Bull taking their last throw of the dice in the 72nd minute when striker Robin Nelisse was summoned.

Jezek, who had shone as a sub last week, was menacing again on the left flank with Byrne dropping deep from his right wing role to give Rossiter extra support. All round the park, it was obvious that Bohs legs were tiring; the locals noticed, raising the volume a decibel or two.

With 11 minutes to go, Red Bull hearts jumped a beat when Janko spun away from Oman, but got his header all wrong. Around him, a number of his colleagues greeted that outcome by frustratedly throwing their arms into the air, fearing the game was up.

Alas, seven minutes later, in heartbreaking circumstances for Bohs, they would be gifted a get out of jail free card.

Bohemians -- Murphy, Rossiter (McGuinness 87), Oman, Shelley, Powell; J Byrne (Cronin 84), Keegan, Deegan, Ndo, Brennan (Murphy 66); Crowe.

Red Bull Salzburg -- Gustafsson, Schwegler, Dudic, Schiemer, Ulmer (Jezek 59); Leitgeb (Nelisse 72) Augustinussen; Tchoyi, Ilic (Vladavic 63), Svento; Janko.

Ref -- A Stavrev (Macedonia)