On the face of it, it looks very promising for St Patrick's Athletic. A draw against a team they've beaten twice already this season, and one whose form in recent weeks has been erratic to say the least, and the title is theirs. Still, recent history would suggest that there is plenty of reason for City to knuckle down at Turner's Cross tomorrow afternoon for on each of the four previous occasions during the past decade that the championship has been decided on the final day the leaders have managed to blow it.

Both City and St Patrick's have first-hand experience of the phenomenon; the southerners having lost the title to Dundalk in 1991 and won it two years later after Bohemians snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Pat Dolan's, side, of course, go into tomorrow's game as defending champions because Shelbourne failed to keep their nerve at Oriel Park last season.

There'll be those at Inchicore who argue that things are stacked too heavily in Liam Buckley's favour this time around for it all to unravel again but the St Patrick's boss wouldn't be the first to find the last day's turn of events a little surprising.

1991: Level on points, Cork and Dundalk face each other at Turner's Cross with the home side's better goal difference mean- ing that they only require a draw. In the end a single Tom McNulty goal wins the game, and the league, for the visitors.

"I remember Turner's Cross was completely black. It was a fine day, the weather had been good for a while before that and the pitch had barely any grass on it but it didn't bother us much. We all thought we were going to win out first league medals that day.

It was a horrible afternoon, though. To be fair we were naive and they were a good bit cuter than us. In the first 20 minutes they took the wind out of sails and for the rest of the game they dominated us physically and, I suppose because they had more experienced players, mentally, as well.

With about 15 minutes to go Tom McNulty scored and I don't think any of us could really believe it. Maybe we'd been looking forward to the celebrations a bit too much and not the game.

The experience probably stood to us two years later when we won it and looking back at it now everybody says that it was a great sporting occasion but, when you lose it's difficult to think in terms of it being a great occasion."

John Caulfield

1993: A point would have been enough this time to ensure that Bohemians finish top but a humiliating day starts with the team bus breaking down on the way to Oriel Park and ends with McNulty, again, scuppering the leaders. Cork subsequently win the title after a torturous three way play-off with Bohemians and Shelbourne.

"From a club point of view it was a disaster. We usually met at around noon but for some reason that day we met at about 1.15 for a game that was supposed to start in Dundalk at 3.15. If things had gone to plan we would have made it there an hour before the kick off . . . but they didn't.

In the real world if a team was an hour late for a game it would be called off and the game awarded to the home side and, in retrospect, that's probably what should have happened. I remember, though, when we did get there we had about five minutes to get stripped and warmed up.

For the goal, we all thought the ball had gone behind for a goalkick but the referee gave a corner, Lee King was our aerial challenger and so the ball fell to Tom McNulty who, to be fair scored a pretty good goal.

At the end I was disappointed in one way but I didn't think we'd been robbed or anything like that and we still had the escape clause, if you like, of knowing there would have to be play-offs.

When you've been going well there's always an appetite for more games and so in a funny way even then I was looking forward to the extra matches. I knew we had another bite of the cherry and I thought we'd take it. We didn't, though, and that monkey is still on the club's back."

Robbie Best

1995: McNulty gets one of two for Dundalk as they beat Galway United to lift the title. As ever the trophy is in the wrong place, this time in Athlone where Stuart Gauld's missed penalty, his first failure from the spot in 39 at- tempts, costs Derry two points and the championship. At Tolka Park Shelbourne are held by St Patrick's, ending their hopes of snatching the top spot.

"The team talk beforehand was pretty basic. Dermot (Keely) just said to us what a crime it would be if the other results went our way and we didn't do our part and then we went out there.

I've always been lucky here at Dundalk in that when there's been a good game I've tended to do well and I was delighted to score again that day. It was just a long clearance by Eddie Van Boxtel that I ran through and got onto and slipped past the keeper but I think generally we were the better side so the result was never in too much doubt.

During the game we didn't have too much idea what was going on anywhere else but towards the end the fans were going a bit mad and that turned out to be Derry missing the penalty.

Then, after our game had finished, we had to wait, five minutes or so, for the Derry game to finish. They were probably the longest few minutes of my time in football, listening to what was going on down in Athlone, but it was great when they were over, great for all the players and for the 1,500, maybe 2,000 fans that were there to see it."

Tom McNulty

1998: Once again Dundalk are involved, beating Shelbourne 2-1 this time to deprive Damien Richard- son's team of glory. Down at Kilkenny, meanwhile, St Patrick's Athletic win by the same score to overhaul their rivals at the top of the table.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the biggest factor in our game last year was the fact that Pat Fenlon and Dessie Baker were both suspended. We were always going to miss them for the game and the fact that they would have had their suspensions out of the way by then if there hadn't been a mistake inside in Merrion Square is one of those things that might have made all the difference.

Then on the night probably four or five players didn't really do themselves justice, which is to be expected on a big occasion like that but by the time we got 10 minutes into the second half I was starting to get worried because I could see that we really weren't imposing ourselves on the game. Still, on nights like that, you just think to yourself that maybe you'll get away with it.

When the first goal went in I wasn't all that concerned because I felt we had the sort of players that would get us goals and even after the second I thought we were still in there with a chance of getting the point.

The problem was that Dundalk played in the closing stages as if it was a European Cup final for them. That ended up costing us the league but the fact that they had achieved something that night, I think, had the effect of papering over the cracks at the club, everybody went away feeling happier about thing than they should have and we've seen how that rebounded on them this season."

Damien Richardson