Llanelli coach Peter Nicholas would be happy if Tuesday night's Champions League qualifier with Ventspils finishes goalless.

Although Nicholas is anxious not to be seen as negative, as a veteran of 73 internationals for his country, he is experienced enough to know a home stalemate would not be a disaster for his team in their first foray into Europe's biggest club competition.

"It sounds negative but 0-0 is better than 1-1 and 1-0 would certainly be better than 2-1," he said.

"We will try and win but if we manage not to concede, it would be fantastic and give us a real chance of going through."

While a gate of 2,000 hardly compares with the giants of Milan, Madrid and Manchester, for Llanelli it represents a surge of interest and far outweighs that which Ventspils enjoy on home soil, where their average gates struggle to get much above 500.

And it should ensure Stebonheath Park provides a healthy atmosphere as Llanelli's football team look to take some headlines from their rugby counterparts for once.

"You only have to mention the name Llanelli and people think rugby," Nicholas said.

"But I sense a buzz around the town ahead of tomorrow's game. We will have a capacity crowd and we want to do them justice."

Unfortunately for Llanelli, Latvian teams tend to have an edge in quality over their Welsh counterparts and the Intertoto Cup demise of current Irish league leaders Bohemians - who hammered Rhyl in the previous round - at the hands of FK Riga on Saturday does not bode well.

"We have done all the background work we can," reflected Nicholas.

"I have gone through a few DVDs and went to see Ventspils for myself last week, so we are prepared in that sense and the team have had six games now. Overall, I am pretty happy."

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