Old hands bring best from gifted young crew

Martin Moran laughs as he ponders the cycle of policy shifts at Belfield Park over more than two decades. The UCD manager recalls having to leave the club back in the late seventies and move to Home Farm because he had graduated, thereby rendering himself ineligible to play for the university side. "Then they got into the league and everything started to change. I came back." Gradually, under Dr Tony O'Neill, the club tinkered with the formula, searching for a balance that could achieve respectability on the field while retaining some sense of purpose off it.

In 1984, with a team made up of roughly equal numbers of students and complete outsiders, the club won its only major trophy. Moran was the only graduate who took home an FAI Cup medal that day.

After many seasons relying entirely on the scholarship scheme for talent, last season Dr O'Neill - who sadly was to pass away later in the year - felt that the time was right to return to the policy of strengthening the team from outside. During the close season, and within 24 hours of each other, the Bohemians duo of Brian Mooney and former UCD player Peter Hanrahan were asked to come on board.

Hanrahan says that all the way through his highly successful National League career he knew he'd end up back at Foster Avenue. "I always said it to people, and I kept in touch with everybody out there, it just always felt like it would be the right place to finish up."

It's hard to imagine Mooney having the same vision of his fate, but when the offer came he was happy to make the jump, even if he was subsequently surprised by the differences there were in the UCD dressing-room compared to others.

"Well, anywhere I've ever been as a senior player there'd always been a mix of ages, but suddenly here I was at a club where myself and Peter had been around a good bit but everybody else was so much younger. I mean there's nothing bad about it at all, that's what the club is all about, helping to bed players down in the league and enabling them to go out there and show what they can do. It's just different, the fact that all of them might be feeling the pressure a bit when exams are coming up."

On the pitch the differences have been noticeable too, with the new arrivals from Dalymount Park bringing a more experienced outlook to a team that has always been easy on the eye but which has sometimes lacked the cuteness to make the most of their talents.

"I think sometimes we're there to put our foot on the ball and slow things down when it's needed," says Mooney. "The odd time when we're one up or something there's just the need for somebody to help kill things. But basically the team is still the same, it's still pretty much about the young lads."

In an impressive recent run of form the team has taken 10 points from 12, suffered just one defeat in seven matches and gone five games without conceding a goal. "There's been so many fellas doing well," says Hanrahan, who praises Mooney and the younger stars. "Ciaran Martyn is a great talent and Aidan Lynch has been outstanding, Barry Ryan is a good goalkeeper and Ciaran Kavanagh has been fantastic, he's been in absolutely brilliant form."

Hanrahan is doubtful with an Achilles tendon problem for this evening, but his contribution has included a dramatically-improved strike rate of late - he scored twice in the last round - which he credits to a lift in team morale.

Mooney feels that his new side are in just the sort of form to cause a bit on an upset against his old one at Dalymount this evening, something he would enjoy, despite all the friends he made in his days at Dalymount.

"Bohs have a good side but when I came here I felt that they had the makings of a good one too and I think that the way we've been playing lately proves that."