Odds seem well stacked in favour of Bohemians

FAI CUP FINAL: The build up may have been overshadowed by much of what has been going on amongst the lawyers and administrators these past few weeks but with both sides playing well and badly needing the UEFA Cup football that a win would bring, tomorrow's Carlsberg FAI Cup final between Bohemians and Dundalk at Tolka Park has the potential to provide a welcome diversion from the turmoil being endured in the premier and first divisions. Emmet Malone reports

Dundalk, who will drop from the former to the latter over the summer, will start the game as underdogs, a status that few about Oriel Park care to dispute too strongly. But as he continued his side's preparations yesterday, Martin Murray did express some surprise at the fact that the bookmakers have given his men just a one in four chance of winning this two horse race.

"It looks a good bet to be me," said Murray, whose side finished the season in the sort of form that would have left them safe as houses in the league had it extended beyond their 21st game of the campaign.

Both clubs, in fact, started to turn things around on the December weekend that the cup got under way. Since then Murray and Stephen Kenny's sides have lost three and two respectively in 19 league and cup outings, not bad from two teams who will, even if they win tomorrow, have fallen well short of what they set out to achieve when the season kicked off last August.

When Murray says his team is capable of matching any other if they play to their potential and impose themselves on a game he has plenty of supporting evidence on which to draw and Kenny will be keenly aware that his own side has failed to win any of the sides' three previous meetings this year.

When the Bohemians manager started to identify those players he felt would pose the greatest threat at Tolka Park, however, the first two he named - Garry Haylock and James Keddy - happened to be amongst the major doubt injury doubts for the weekend. He laughed about how injury problems had a habit of getting blown out of proportion during the build up to an occasion like this but his demeanour suggested he was already itching to get a look at the opposition's team sheet.

Haylock should be all right, although having seen a doctor about his knee problem yesterday the striker has been told that no final decision on his participation can be made until today at the earliest. With Keddy, who picked up a hamstring problem against St Patrick's last week, looking far more doubtful the wait will be a nervous one for everybody in the Dundalk camp. The two former Shelbourne players have provided a disproportionate share of the team's attacking threat in recent weeks.

If Haylock is fit enough to start then Murray says he will have to decide on whether Martin Reilly or Cormac Malone partners him in attack, but it doesn't look like much of a choice for such a big occasion. Malone, is described enthusiastically by his manager as "quite a find for us," but the more experienced man looks the more likely choice.

Otherwise, it will be much as it has been since Dundalk humiliated Shamrock Rovers - and probably surprised even themselves a month ago in the semi-final. Chris Lawless will come in for Keddy, if needed, while John Whyte will again start at right back, with David Hoey shifted forward into the right side of midfield.

Kenny, meanwhile, has a couple of injury problems but none that are likely to have any real impact on his team selection. Instead, the question marks about his line up hang over the centre of his defence and, most pointedly, the left hand side of the midfield.

Having been nursed through the past few weeks so he would be fit for this one, Colin Hawkins is certain to start despite his groin problem, but Avery John now looks to have slipped out of contention for the other centre back slot thanks to what is perceived around Dalymount as a run of indifferent form.

On the face of it, Stephen Caffrey looks set to return to midfield but Kenny made no secret this week of the fact that he has been agonising a little over who to play out wide on the left, where both Dave Morrison and Mark Rutherford have proven highly effective.

Last weekend he switched Morrison into the centre alongside Kevin Hunt and subsequently declared himself happy with the experiment. To play him there tomorrow on the strength of one game might seem a little rash but it would allow Kenny to both accommodate Rutherford and, perhaps, benefit from the greater pace that Caffrey would offer alongside Hawkins at the back.

Whatever he chooses to do in the end there can scarcely ever have been a more widely felt hope that a cup final rises above the mediocrity that so regularly grips these occasions and genuinely fulfils its potential.

PROBABLE TEAMS

BOHEMIANS: Russell; O'Connor, Hawkins, Hill, Webb; Harkin, Hunt, Caffrey, Rutherford; Crowe, Molloy.

DUNDALK: Connolly; Whyte, Broughan, McGuinness, Crawley; Hoey, Kavanagh, Flanagan, Lawless; Haylock, Reilly.