Back when he was in charge of St Patrick's Athletic Brian Kerr used to insist it wasn't until the first complete cycle of games were out of the way that you could make any real sense of the way in which the new season was panning out. Like a few others he might have been surprised if he was still running things now and looking this morning at an Eircom-sponsored National League table that has Shamrock Rovers perched at its top.

Even before last night's game with Galway, Damien Richardson's side had a point to spare over the two clubs most people had expected to dominate the title chase this season. But then Friday night's 10-goal encounter between Bohemians and Shelbourne, the anticipated front runners, said a good deal about that pair's respective weaknesses and there are those, some of them connected to the club, who believe what has changed since last season is not an improvement on the part of the current leaders so much as a decline on the part of those they are eclipsing.

Richardson, for one, disagrees. Though the club continues its high-profiled campaign to finally move into its own home in Tallaght and the players still having to train wherever a pitch can be secured (five different locations so far this season), the Rovers boss insists things continue to improve both on and off the pitch.

On it he claims that the three new signings during the summer have been crucial to the team's improvement although, to be fair, Stephen Grant's role looks set to be peripheral for as long as Tony Grant and Seβn Francis continue to link up so well together up front.

At the other end of the pitch nobody is arguing much about the case of Pat Scully, whose arrival has provided leadership. And perhaps the only remarkable thing about the former Shelbourne skipper joining up with Richardson is the fact the club, for all its difficulties in terms of the building work at Tallaght, was in a position to compete for a player that its rivals were also looking to land.

Greg Costello's recruitment during the close season came as more of a surprise, to the players as well as to the rest of us it seems. But Richardson insists that once he was convinced by Costello of his desire to get himself properly fit again he was certain the signing would pay off.

The defender, he admits, is still not quite as sharp as he should be and when the manager describes him as being "sturdily built" it's as fine a euphemism as you are likely to hear but both parties remain confident we will see Costello back to his best this season and if they are right then the re-emergence of one of the league's finer ball-players will be welcome.

What Costello's return also highlights, says Richardson, is his faith in his back-room team, particularly on the medical side where the growing expertise of club physio Alan Kinsella and doctor Alan Byrne have been instrumental in allowing the club to cut down on the amount of time players spend sidelined by injuries.

"It was they who persuaded me that Greg's pelvic injury had definitely cleared up and between the three of us then we drew up a programme to get Greg completely fit again. That's been working well and while we're not completely there yet, what we've seen already is the extent to which we can all benefit from the growing pool of expertise within the club."

It is, he insists, one area in which Rovers lead the field and the support the club provided for Brian Byrne while he was injured and on its books is the main reason, Richardson insists, that he was so upset to see the player go during the summer.

In reality the defection does not appear to have cost them much. Richardson says he had always intended to play Billy Woods in the more attacking role this year even if Byrne had stayed although it's easy to see why he would say that anyway. The fact that Woods, then usually playing at left back, came very close to joining Cork City last season is hardly a concrete indication of how highly he was rated around the Dublin club at the time.

Woods, though, has clearly been one of the success stories so far this season with his work on the left flank helping to enable the side to maintain its strike rate at much the same level as this time last year while, behind him, things have become a good deal tighter defensively.

Whether the club can maintain their early form remains to be seen and even Richardson is making few promises. Fitness, he says, is something he and his players have done a huge amount of work on over the past few months but mental strength, well that's not something that's so easy to sort out on the rented-by-the-hour training pitch.

As Joe Colwell attempts to secure the funding still needed for the club to complete its move to Tallaght, though, the timing of Rovers' appearance as pace setters could hardly have been better while it must have come as a welcome boost to Richardson himself.

His squad actually trained on the pitch in their new home for the very first time over the weekend and if they are playing games there this season (he says Christmas is a possibility, before the summer a virtual certainty) then he has grand plans for next year including a dramatic increase in the number of full-time players from the current level of just two.

But there are those, and again some of them are very close to the heart of the club, who feel that Richardson will be fortunate to still be in charge next season if the club doesn't at least qualify for Europe at the end of this season, the argument being that Mick Byrne was not indulged to the same extent as his successor.

The Tallaght era getting under way with the club even seriously challenging for the title would count for a great deal, though, the only pity being that we will have to wait at least until the second cycle is out of the way before we know just how realistic a prospect it really is.

emalone@irish-times.ie