Kenny keeps eyes focused on final goal

Scottish FA Cup Semi-final Sunday Hibernian v Dunfermline Venue: Hampden Park Kick-off: 3pm: Emmet Malonetalks to the Dunfermline manager, who is still waging a campaign on two fronts.

His primary task at East End Park has been, presumably, to prevent Dunfermline Athletic from losing their Scottish Premier League status but board members who hired Stephen Kenny late last year may well have reckoned that even if the Dubliner couldn't pull that particular rabbit out of the hat there might at least be the consolation prize of a decent cup run.

Sure enough, the man who won the League Cup in each of his last two years at home and hadn't failed during the last seven seasons here to guide whatever team he was managing at least as far as the semi-finals of the FAI Cup has defied the odds in Scotland to bring the Pars to the last four of its Scottish equivalent.

It's an achievement itself, but as he heads into the last month of his first campaign in Scotland Kenny insists the hard work is just beginning. A win tomorrow would be enough to guarantee Dunfermline European football later in the year if Celtic beat St Johnstone in this afternoon's other semi-final. But whether or not that is achieved, the battle to avoid relegation will resume against Dundee United when a win could take Dunfermline to within a point of relegation rivals St Mirren.

"The cup is obviously hugely important to us," says Kenny, "and European football would be a big thing here - they've only been in Europe once in the last 28 years - but to be honest the semi-final hasn't come at the best of times.

"We've won two of our last three in the league and felt like we were building a bit of momentum. St Mirren have been struggling and it would have been nice to try and keep the pressure mounting before we play them in a couple of weeks."

Not that the Dubliner is complaining. He was at Hampden Park a couple of months back when tomorrow's opponents, Hibernian, won the Scottish League Cup and was hugely impressed by the atmosphere in the 52,000-capacity stadium.

"Hibs brought somewhere between 32,000 and 35,000 that day and the place was almost full," he says. "It was a great occasion and I'm sure Sunday's game will be too."

Kenny is respectful when asked about tomorrow's opposition, but John Collins's side has not had a great week, defeat by the Pars in the league followed by a midweek mutiny when many of the first-team squad paid a late-night visit to the chief executive's home, while the manager was in France, to complain about Collins.

"Yeah, it seems they don't like his methods, which is funny really given that they won the CIS Cup so recently. There was talk that they reckoned all the routines were really monotonous but I wouldn't read too much into it really. Players can be a selfish enough bunch and I think they'll look to go out there and win tomorrow because they desperately want to be in the final even if they're not exactly looking to do it for the manager."

The commitment of Dunfermline's players towards their own manager appears to have grown as they have better taken the measure of him over the past couple of months.

True to form, Kenny has encouraged his men to play their way out of trouble and happily points to the influence in recent times of the likes of Tam McManus, Jim O'Brien and Adam Hammill, all recruited since his arrival, as "exciting players who can take on and go past people".

McManus along with Stephen Glass, is cup-tied for tomorrow while midfielder Stephen Simmons, scorer of two goals in an earlier round, is suspended and striker Stephen Crawford and Jim Hamilton as well as another midfielder, Darren Young, are all suspended.

"We've had a lot out since I arrived, though, so we'll cope. In previous rounds the the lads have beaten Rangers and Hearts at times that we couldn't do anything in the league, which has been very hard to explain to people.

Hopefully, now our cup form doesn't desert us now that we've managed to win a couple of games in the league."