National League Previews Shelbourne v Derry CityWith everything that has gone on behind the scenes at Tolka Park over the past few months Shelbourne's players might easily have been forgiven had they lost their way in the Premier Division title race.

Instead, they go into this evening's top-of-the-table clash against Derry City with a seven-point advantage and the opportunity to pile pressure upon a side that will have to cope with a few distractions during the coming weeks.

Derry return to Uefa Cup action next Thursday night in Paris and are still in contention for a treble after beating the Dubliners in a dramatic League Cup final on Monday night. However, Shelbourne skipper Owen Heary insists his side have already shown they have the character to take the Irish game's biggest prize back to Tolka Park.

"The players here have already shown that they have what it takes to win the thing, I think," says Heary. "I mean nobody could have blamed them for taking it badly when there were the money problems or everybody was wondering whether Pat (Fenlon) was going to go to Bohemians or not but at the time they were winning games four and five nil.

"The reality is that players come and go, just like managers do, and whatever happens the rest of you have to be professional and get on with your job. I don't want to be looking around for excuses for blowing it the way we were with the Pat Scully thing (in 2001) and I know nobody else here does. A win against Derry would leave them 10 points behind and even if they do have three games in hand, that will still amount to a fair bit of pressure."

Under Stephen Kenny, though, Derry have developed a knack for beating their title rivals and their dilemma this evening is whether they should seek to maintain that run or look to avoid what would be a damaging defeat.

"My own view is that they'll probably play for the point, look to get a lot of players behind the ball," says Heary. "For us the task will be to get at them and, if we manage to create chances, to take them this time but we'll have to be careful because we know only too well at this stage what Derry can do."

Shelbourne will be without the suspended Seán Dillon while the red cards picked up by David Forde and Killian Brennan mean Kenny will have to make at least two changes. Heary, one suggests, is fortunate not to be watching from the stand too after his altercation with Brennan but the right back maintains that, however it looked on television, he didn't deliberately "swing for" the Derry midfielder and "I certainly didn't catch him where people are saying I did".

Kenny, though, feels aggrieved that Heary will get to feature this time around while he must decide how best to cope with the loss of Brennan. Pat McCourt could switch to the left with Kevin Deery moving forward from right back or Shaun Holmes could come in but whatever happens, Kenny insists, in stark contrast to the Shelbourne player's assessment of his tactics, the intention will be to get at the home side.

"The other night we played Kevin at right back because we wanted to give ourselves the best possible chance of getting bodies forward. It mightn't exactly have worked out that way with the way things turned out but it was certainly the plan and while I take the point that losing the game would be a bad result for us I still think that it's the way we'll approach things again."