Longford look for improved effort

FAI Cup previews: FAI Cup holders Longford Town will have Alan Murphy and Shane Barrett back from suspension for this evening's quarter-final replay at St Mel's Park. Having seen his side throw away a two-goal lead in Saturday's first meeting with midland rivals Athlone, Alan Matthews is expected to start this game with both men.

Longford looked to be coasting towards the last four over the weekend when goals from Adrian Murphy and Des Hope hauled the first division side back to level terms and earned them a rematch.

And while Athlone boss Stephen Kelly is understandably happy to field an unchanged side for tonight's game Matthews' obvious disappointment suggests he'll take the opportunity to make a couple of changes.

"We should have killed them off," he says, "but instead we took our foot off the pedal and that's what happens. In the end, they deserved their draw and we'll have to do better when we go down there."

Kelly still insists his side are the underdogs in the derby game, but with nothing to lose in front of what should be a big crowd at St Mel's, the hosts will fancy their chances of completing the upset and move through to the semi-finals.

Drogheda United will expect to progress this evening having come away from their trip to Belfield on Friday night with a draw.

The Premier Division title challengers produced a performance well short of their best in Dublin, but finally took a grip on a tightly-contested game late on when Andy Myers, Mark Rooney and Barry Molloy all went close to grabbing a winner for Paul Doolin's side.

With Neil Gallagher still injured, Darren Quigley was the hero for the students at the weekend and he will start again in goal this evening. Defensively, though, Pete Mahon has a couple of problems.

Right back Alan Mahon, the manager's son, is ruled out by the hamstring problem that forced him to limp out of the first meeting between the two sides.

Alan McNally (groin) is also likely be on the sidelines with former Galway United and St Patrick's Athletic centre back Ciarán Foley expected to make what would be just his fourth start of the season.

Like Kelly, Mahon reckons the pressure is on Drogheda now and the UCD manager is hoping that if his side can match the Premier Division outfit in the way they did for more than an hour on Friday then they may yet nick the win that would put them through to the semi-finals of the competition they won for the only time 30 years ago.