Kilmarnock 1 Cercle Brugge 1 as Ayrshire side head to Belgium with game in balance

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Kilmarnock will be heading to Belgium next week still very much in the tie following an entertaining 1-1 draw with Cercle Brugge at Rugby Park in the first leg of their Europa League second qualifying round tie.The visitors opened the scoring in the early stages of the second half having squandered a couple of glorious chances prior to the break.

Former Ross County man Kazeem Olaigbe curled a terrific effort beyond debutant Robby McCrorie - but Killie gaffer Derek McInnes will have been furious that he was given the freedom of Ayrshire down the left wing before netting.The Rugby Park side showed plenty of fight last term to clinch their place in Europe and that evidently hadn't evaporated over the summer as Kyle Vassell's header that deflected off David Watson brought about an equaliser on 70 minutes.The hosts will have been keen to get off to a fast start to match the electric atmosphere prior to kick-off - and they almost did just that as Vassell poked an effort on goal after just 11 seconds that was palmed away by Warleson.Cercle looked to attack quickly whenever they had possession and threatened on nine minutes as Olaigbe saw his strike deflected wide.To their credit, both sides looked to play attacking football and get the ball in the final third quickly, but genuine chances were few and far between with Jesper Daland's tame header at the back post being the best either side could muster up until after the half hour mark when the visitors passed up two glorious chances to open the scoring.Firstly, Abdoul Kader Outtara played Olaigbe into acres of space down the left flank but the winger could only blaze high and wide when he should have done much better before Outtara himself squandered the best chance either side