SOCCER LEAGUE OF IRELAND:IN ENGLAND, they start every season with a game between the league and cup winners. Here, it takes a little bit of luck to make such a clash materialise, although as the news that his side's first ever game of top-flight football will be away to a Bohemians side aiming to make it three in a row this year, it wasn't entirely sure last night whether Sporting Fingal boss Liam Buckley reckoned the gods had been kind or not.
“Obviously it’s a tough opener for us,” he said last night. “They’ve actually stepped up from last year in terms of some of the signings they’ve made.
“A lot of people will have Rovers up there with them in terms of the league but for me Bohemians are the favourites.
“They have the strongest squad, the biggest budget and Pat (Fenlon) has been able to add players like (Stephen) Gray, (Gareth) McGlynn and (Rafael) Cretaro, lads any manager would have been pleased to get their hands on.
“Compared to that, the reality is that while we had a very successful season last year in terms of winning the cup and getting promoted, we still only finished third in the First Division behind UCD and Shelbourne.
“We’ve about 14 of that squad still involved and while we’ve brought in six or seven good players, we know we’ve got to move on fairly promptly from where we were.”
Sporting’s finances were scarcely typical of the First Division and while they were a little erratic at time, they showed, when beating the likes of Shamrock Rovers and Sligo Rovers on the way to the cup success, they could make a major step up when required.
Now, Buckley admits, they must look to do it week in week out.
“It’s difficult to set particular targets at this stage because the players are going to be going to the likes of Richmond Park and Turner’s Cross week in week out and we are going to have to see how they cope with that but the group we have would be ambitious.
“A lot of them had never won anything before coming here and now they want to push on from the cup win. What we’ll be capable of this year, we’ll have to wait and see. The main thing I’d be hoping for, though, is we’re competitive from the outset.
“As for the Bohemians game,” he added, “it’ll be a big game, they’ll have a decent crowd and it’ll be live on TV, which will raise our profile that little bit more.
“We’ll be working hard to get ready for it over the next couple of weeks but I wouldn’t be making any predictions yet about how it might go.”
The game is probably the pick of the opening weekend’s action, although there will be a lot of interest too in how Shamrock Rovers do on their visit the following night to Paul Cook’s remodelled Sligo Rovers side.
Dundalk and Drogheda United, who meet this evening in the Jim Malone Cup, square up again for the first Louth league derby on March 12th, while the first clash between the two favourites for the title, Rovers and Bohemians, is lined up for Tallaght on April 9th.
As things stand, Cork City will host Dundalk on the Friday but that will, of course, change in the event the takeover of the club is not completed and it fails to secure a licence next week. Doubts persisted yesterday, with continued reports the debts being uncovered by the consortium in the course of its due diligence are larger than anticipated.
If City fail to get a licence Bray Wanderers will take their place and a Cork team, established by Foras, could fill the vacancy in the First Division.
Derry City, meanwhile, start life in the lower division with a home match against Bray Wanderers.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)