Pat Fenlon will stick as closely as he can to the side that beat Waterford United last week as Shelbourne look to build on a good start to the new league campaign against Derry City at the Brandywell tonight.
The Dubliners produced what was probably their best display of the new campaign to beat the cup holders despite having Richie Baker sent off during the opening minutes of the game. "I was more than happy with the performance," said Fenlon yesterday, "so there's no reason to change anything more than we have to."
Baker will have to be replaced due to his suspension, of course, but Fenlon has strong options with both Ollie Cahill and Bobby Ryan available for selection. Alan Moore, who missed last Friday's game, is still out with a calf strain, but the visitors are otherwise at full strength with Joseph Ndo and Glen Fitzpatrick both coming into contention for the first time.
Derry must wait to see whether Seán Hargan shakes off a slight foot injury in time to play but, the left back aside, Stephen Kenny is also in a position to stick closely to the starting 11 that won at Dalymount Park.
Under Kenny, though, City did well against Shelbourne last year with a slightly altered formation and it is possible that Kenny will again opt to playing with two defensive midfielders and a lone striker up front.
"We'll have to have a think about it between now and then," said Kenny. "It worked well for us last season all right, but then I've been very pleased with the displays from the team the way it's played over the last couple of weeks and so you wouldn't necessarily want to change anything."
Cork City face another hectic few days with a long journey to Portadown to come after tonight's clash at Turner's Cross with UCD. The southerners look likely to be without John O'Flynn again, although the striker, who has been back training over the past few days, could make the bench if he has no reaction to last night's session with the rest of the squad during the build up to kick-off.
"I watched UCD in pre-season against Kilkenny and I was impressed by them," says Damien Richardson. "They always seem to have the same very positive attitude and ethos about them and the current team under Pete Mahon is no exception. They have a decent record against Cork so we certainly won't underestimate them, but we've started well and the hope is that we can continue to build a bit of momentum over the next few weeks."
The visitors are one of six Premier division teams still looking to secure their first win of the new campaign with St Patrick's Athletic, who take on Finn Harps in Inchicore, and bottom-placed team Longford Town amongst the others.
John McDonnell, who has doubts about Stephen Caffrey, Barry Prenderville and Paul Donnelly, concedes that his side could have done with winning at least one of its games so far but, he says, the early signs have been promising.
"After the Bray game we should really have gone on and beaten Bohemians because we were the better team for long stretches and we could have wrapped things up in Drogheda before they got the equaliser. They're not bad results although obviously we could do with a few wins to keep us away from the bottom."
Longford take on Shamrock Rovers at Dalymount hoping they can build on Monday's fine win over Irish league champions Linfield in the Setanta Cup. "They're a good side, but we took the game to them, took our chances and defended well when we needed to," said Alan Matthews, who is still without Alan Murphy.
