NATIONAL LEAGUE: With the Paul Marney affair now looking all but certain to end up being resolved by the courts, there was some reason to be grateful for the late Tony Grant goal that gave Shamrock Rovers their win over a somewhat luckless Monaghan United side on Sunday evening.

It's far from certain what a High Court judge will make of the evidence that Shelbourne reckon is of such central importance to achieving a satisfactory resolution of the Marney saga and the on/off nine-point deduction. But the fact that Rovers have maintained a title challenge which seemed likely at various stages of the last few months to wither, has at least meant that what would be an adverse judgement from the point of view of St Patrick's Athletic won't have the almost immediate side effect of ending this year's championship race.

The chances of such a speedy resolution in the courts is, of course, rather remote and the general expectation is that an interim ruling will be made on whether to reimpose the nine-point penalty pending a full hearing of the case.

Given that there are only a couple of months of the current campaign to run, that poses an obvious threat to the championship run-in, although at least with Rovers still on their tails, Shelbourne's players aren't faced with the prospect of suddenly finding themselves with a huge points advantage courtesy of a court decision that might subsequently be overturned.

There is a growing suspicion, though, that the final outcome of the Marney dispute may end up being irrelevant to the Tolka Park club, for while it has rumbled on in the background for months now, the club's players have looked increasing capable of sorting out this league on the pitch.

All of the leading sides have gone through rough patches this season but only Shelbourne have consistently improved since the campaign got under way.

Five wins and three draws produced a haul of 18 points from their first eight league games, and since November, they have become far more accomplished at grinding out the wins.

Friday's 3-0 victory over Longford was scarcely their most memorable, given the major contribution made by the dismissal of three of the visiting players, but it did bring to 28 the number of points secured from Shelbourne's previous 11 games, a total that compares favourably with the 18 managed by St Patrick's Athletic and 20 accumulated by Rovers.

Given the amount of money spent last summer at Tolka Park, none of this comes as a surprise, but then not everything has gone to plan up in Drumcondra.

First there was Dermot Keely's temporary absence from the dugout due to illness. And then there was the somewhat prolonged period of chopping and changing that has led to the line-up currently favoured by the management.

The outcome has been fairly impressive, but it would have been hard to imagine last August that Peter Hutton would end up playing at right-back, or that Owen Heery would be playing on the left side of the defence.

Similarly, it seems safe to assume that Keely didn't envisage Stephen Geoghegan, a player who was widely expected to move during the close season, being his top scorer and, it might be added, the only forward to achieve a notable strike-rate at this point in the season.

Having led the table for 19 rounds of games last year before being overtaken by Bohemians on the very last day, nobody at the club needs reminding that the league has yet to be won. Both Rovers and St Patrick's are well within striking distance of the leaders even if the rest of the pack now seem to be out of contention.

Even at Tolka, though, the hope must be that the outcome of this week's legal action, if it does go ahead, doesn't end up deciding the destination of the league.

It's a measure of how little progress has been made in relation to the entire dispute over the past few weeks that Brendan Menton yesterday all but welcomed the prospect of it being brought before the courts.

But for the championship to be decided there some time over the summer months would represent a blow to the game here that would not easily be shaken off, as well as leaving a lingering bitterness at a time when the country's leading clubs desperately need to be setting aside their differences and moving forward together.