Liam Buckley rallying resources ahead of busy run-in for Saints

Dundalk’s FAI Cup semi-final against Longford Town has been fixed for Friday, October 2nd (7.25)with Cork’s trip to Bray coming two days later on Sunday the 4th (2.0). Both games will be broadcast live by RTÉ.

The FAI has also refixed league games pushed back from this weekend because of the EA Sports Cup final with Cork City now set to visit Richmond Park to play St Patrick’s Athletic on October 19th, four days before Dundalk travel to Turner’s Cross for a game that may yet put an end to what is left of the title race. Galway, meanwhile, will take on Sligo Rovers on Friday, October 2nd.

The Cork City game makes that a busy and potentially key week for the Saints as they try to secure a place in Europe for next season. Drogheda United and Sligo Rovers are due to visit Inchicore on the Fridays either side of the game but manager Liam Buckley says that the club's immediate priority is the League Cup final against Galway United at Eamonn Deacy Park.

“Qualifying for Europe would certainly have been one of our priorities at the start of the season and there’s not much in it between ourselves and Rovers at this stage so we have no idea how that is going to turn out,” said Buckley. “But this group has won the league, the FAI Cup, the President’s Cup and the Leinster Senior Cup over the last few years so it would be nice for them to add a League Cup and that’s what we’ll be concentrating on doing this week.”

Buckley is hoping to have Christy Fagan available for Saturday's game.

“He has trained on Sunday and he has trained today, so we’d certainly be very hopeful at this stage that he will be an option for us,” added Buckley about the striker whose season has been repeatedly disrupted by injury, something that has had a significant impact on the club’s fortunes.

Ian Morris and Killian Brennan are also on course to feature in the match-day squad according to Buckley, who will be missing Ian Bermingham through suspension and Shane McEleney who is cup-tied. Brendan Clarke is out too and the goalkeeper's season may well be over after he broke a finger in training.

For Galway, David O'Leary is suspended while Alex Byrne and Padraic Cunningham are ruled out by injury.