Craig Harrison believes TNS' Italian display can be European springboard

That is according to Saints boss Craig Harrison, who expressed immense pride in his players for their willingness to forget individual displays in an effort to thwart the two time champions.

An heroic defensive display kept the Serie A side out for 65 minutes - before two quick fire goals took the game away from the Cymru Premier champions.

Harrison believes his sides display came from lessons learned against Ferencvaros, when they were blown away in the opening 30 minutes

"I'm proud, we've not come to get beat but bigger clubs have been beaten by heavier score lines," expressed the Saints boss.

"I'm proud of everyone because we gave a good account of ourselves.

"We've worked hard this week because we knew we would have long periods without the ball.

"Credit to the players for their willingness to stick together. They had to forget their individual displays and we had to collectively stop them from scoring.

"We learned a lot from Ferencvaros away, because we were out of that within 30 minutes, but here we were in it for 70 minutes, our lads put everything in."

The Saints now head into five more league phase games, three of them on home soil, starting with Astana later in the month.

And Harrison believes his side's desire to do the ugly side of the will give them a springboard heading into the other ties.

He added: "It should give us confidence, it shows we can defend away from home.

"After 70 minutes they had to bring three top players on to win the game.

"We gave up possession but the organisation was so good, we defended set plays well against a big side.

"And the lads had a desire to do the ugly side of the game, they were absolutely outstanding."