Hibernian boss Neil Lennon 'proud' despite Europa League exit in Brondby

Hibernian boss Neil Lennon says his side deserved more following a heartbreaking Europa League exit against Brondby.

The capital club turned in a sensational display in Denmark and emerged as 1-0 winners on the night, cancelling out the one-goal deficit from their defeat at Easter Road.

However, John McGinn fluffed his lines in the shootout and Brondby were ice-cold from 12 yards to progress on penalties to tee up a third qualifying round tie with Hertha Berlin.

And Lennon was left to look back on the first leg - marred by an error from Otso Virtanen and a disallowed Jason Cummings goal - following the agonising exit.

He said: "I am proud of them and pleased with them because they did exactly what we set out to do, which was to win. And without poor officials in the first tie we would have been through.

"Any luck in this tie went against us. However I cannot speak highly enough of the team - outstanding - to come away from home and to lose by a penalty shootout is hard to take. But we need to start from here.

"It is a fantastic start to take Brondby all the way at such an early stage. We feel we were the better team and, but for a horrendous goalkeeper error and scoring a perfectly good goal that wasn't allowed, we would be going to Berlin.

"I thought we had the measure of Brondby after the first game. To come here away from home against a team who are flying - 15 goals in four games - and restrict them to very little is a terrific effort."

Lennon, meanwhile, says no fingers will be pointed at the otherwise excellent McGinn, who was the only man of the nine penalty takers to fail from the spot.

He continued: "That is by the by. They could easily have missed one or two themselves, it was just bad luck.

"I don't think you can talk about villains after a night like that and a performance like that. We were absolutely brilliant and did the fans here proud."