AIRTRICITY PREMIER DIVISION: EMMET MALONEsets the scene as Rovers face UCD tonight with the Premier Division title just one win away

DERRY CITY, and even to a certain extent St Patrick’s Athletic and Bohemians, ensured it wasn’t quite the two-horse race almost everyone had talked about before the season kicked off, but in the end the Premier Division table holds no great surprises as Shamrock Rovers head to Belfield this evening needing a win to wrap up a successful title defence and consign Sligo to second place.

Notionally, at least, Sligo’s challenge might survive into the final round of games on Friday night when it will be their turn to play the students, but they would need Michael O’Neill’s men to slip up tonight and again against Galway United at their Tallaght fortress.

In reality most people at Sligo would accept their hopes of overhauling the Dubliners all but evaporated with the defeat to St Pat’s at Richmond Park a couple of weeks ago. So, the writing was on the wall last Sunday in Dalymount Park where, after seeing his side qualify for a third consecutive FAI Cup final, Paul Cook all but congratulated O’Neill and his men by observing: “At the end of the season, you always finish where you deserve to finish. I’ve no problems if Shamrock Rovers win the league; that says they’re the best team in the country and we’ll respect them for that.”

Everyone, even Bohemians (however much it might pain them) owes them that much. In years to come this season will probably be remembered as the year that Rovers made a major breakthrough for the league here by becoming the first Irish side to qualify for the group stages of a European competition. That they successfully retained the title while doing it, though, is a measure of both their footballing ability and collective mental strength.

Even before the campaign had started, O’Neill had positioned the side well, with the northerner taking full advantage of a severely depressed market and problems elsewhere to significantly improve his squad.

In the end, you could argue about whether his best starting 11 was also the league’s best but that’s not what winning the title is about. Rovers had comfortably the strongest panel of players and O’Neill used his options well, especially late on when the demands of regular European football might have robbed his side’s title charge of momentum.

It was not a flawless campaign but then very few title successes are. Some of the team’s performances prompted murmurings from supporters about team selections and the way in which key players were being utilised.

Rovers neither scored the most goals nor conceded the least but, critically, they amassed the most points, clocking up more than last year in spite of all their Euro distractions and finishing far more strongly than in 2010 with nine wins and two draws from their most recent 12 games, a run of fixtures punctuated by encounters with clubs by whom Rovers’ annual turnover might easily be blown on one player’s wages.

From day one, though, Rovers showed the sort of character that is required of champions.

Briefly in their opening game, they trailed Dundalk at home but the Dubliners scored three times to win and then built on the success with three victories in their next four games.

When they sandwiched draws with Bohemians, Dundalk and St Patrick’s Athletic between two defeats by Bray Wanderers during the weeks that followed there was inevitably concern that things were not going to go to plan.

However, O’Neill’s men survived that poor spell (and crucially still managed to beat Sligo during it) as well as another in June and early July when they lost to both of their closest rivals on the road and then pushed on when the situation required it.

There were few enough dramatic wins and nothing perhaps to compare with the one over Bohemians last year when Pat Flynn was sent off, but his team-mates nevertheless powered their way to a victory that ultimately decided the destination of the title.

There were plenty of important ones, with Karl Sheppard doing much to carve out narrow wins early on against Galway United, Sligo and Bohemians, while Gary Twigg, despite falling some way short of his chart-topping performances of the previous two seasons, chipping in with his fair share too, most notably in July and early August when his goals alone earned nine points from four games.

Behind the strikers, there was a substantial list of strong performers. Dan Murray bounced back from the injury problems of last season to play more minutes than anyone else but he was run close by Pat Sullivan, who was arguably the club’s most consistent player.

The loss of Alan Mannus was a blow but his replacement did, in the end, what was required of him, while Enda Stephens did enough to earn a move in a few weeks’ time to Aston Villa.

Many of the others, it might be argued, blew a little hot and cold but Ronan Finn, Gary McCabe and Stephen Rice certainly had their moments. The latter, like Chris Turner and Conor McCormack, only started about half of the club’s league games, which in itself says a great deal about the options available to their manager. So too did the fact they coped so well without Ken Oman over the tail end of campaign.

In then end, O’Neill acknowledged last week after a hugely significant defeat of Derry had been secured, courtesy of Rohan Rickett’s opportunism: “Results elsewhere gave us a bit of a cushion”.

They took full advantage, though, and ended up looking suitably comfortable. For all of that, they will take the field at Belfield tonight knowing a win will be enough to make them champions, and worthy ones at that.

“We don’t want it to have to go to the last game of the season, we’ll want to wrap it up against UCD,” says O’Neill, who is without Twigg, Billy Dennehy and Turner, all through suspension.

“But we know UCD will be up for a battle. They have been on the end of a couple of heavy defeats to us this year, and will want to make up for that.”

With just a couple of hundred tickets expected to be on sale this evening, it is clear the visiting fans are optimistic there will be something to celebrate but UCD might just delay the party. Martin Russell’s side won the corresponding fixture last season 3-2 and have hit a bit of form of late at home, winning five on the trot – two of them against Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic – and scoring 14 goals along the way.

They are without Samir Belhout and Daniel Ledwith, also through suspension.

With plenty of quality to draft in from the bench, though, Rovers would be hopeful of securing the win they require tonight and if not then they will almost certainly bag title number 17 in Tallaght on Friday night.

It will be interesting to see what happens then with their manager, who is being linked to jobs, including the Northern Ireland one, and shows no evidence of wanting to sign the new deal that has famously been on the table for him at Rovers since the summer, and players, quite a few of who look increasingly likely to be allowed leave the club.