IT SEEMED to be a dream start to Josh Law's competitive career at Motherwell.

After just 20 minutes the former Alfreton Town man, brother of ex-Well and current Rangers star Nicky, thrust himself into the limelight to fire the Fir Park side into a 2-0 lead in the club's Europa League second-round, first-leg qualifier against Stjarnan.

But 70 minutes later the over-riding emotion for the 24-year-old Englishman was transformed from unbridled delirium to abject disappointment.

Two harsh penalty calls, the second in injury-time, saw the Icelanders claim a 2-2 draw, meaning Motherwell must score in Thursday's return leg to have any chance of progressing against Nõmme Kalju of Estonia or Poland's Lech Poznan.

One of the highlights from a night of frustration was the display of Law, who got a standing ovation from the Fir Park crowd when he was substituted midway through the second half.

Played off front man John Sutton instead of out wide, he showed great instinct on nine minutes to prod home a rebound from his strike partner. Just 10 minutes later he was darting in behind the Stjarnan defence to chip into the net after Iain Vigurs played the ball through.

But given the two goals that followed for the visitors, Law admits it's hard to take the positive from his brace.

"It's ended in disappointment even though I'm delighted to get a couple of goals for the club, but it really counts for nothing," said the forward, who played in the Conference Premier last season.

"They are tough opponents, they break really well. We knew that beforehand as we had seen footage of them, so to get the two-goal start was really perfect for them to come on to us and us to counter, but it's gone the other way and we've left quite big holes.

"Fitness definitely played a part, especially in the last 20 minutes when they looked fitter and we were a bit leggy.

Motherwell, in their first competitive match of the new season, looked vulnerable on the break on Thursday against a side that are 11 games into their league campaign.

Indeed, Stuart McCall's men appeared to fade in the second half with the Well boss introducing Fraser Kerr and Lee Erwin for Law and the tiring Lionel Ainsworth to inject energy into his team.

But the Well goal hero believes last season's SPFL runners-up will be all the better for their exertions against Stjarnan. He said: "There's no reason why we can't go over there and win. We'll tighten up a little, the gaffer will have us watch the DVD and we'll go again.

"We're confident ahead of next week. They are a good few games into their season and this was our first competitive match. Not a lot of us had 90 minutes. We'll be able to build on our game time on Thursday."

Motherwell will fly to Iceland on Wednesday morning before training at the 1000-capacity Samsung Vollurinn.

Well must get to grips with Stjarnan's artificial turf, but Law is comfortable they will cope.

"We've heard it's a really good pitch and it's really similar to grass," he said. "It's something we've got to deal with. We've all trained on a surface like it before so we've got no worries."