Shelbourne are leaders in more ways than one

The natural thing might have been to dwell on their successes over the past few months and the nerve they showed late on in the face of a determined late charge by Cork City, but when Pat Fenlon joined his players in the dressing-room at Richmond Park on Friday night, moments after Shelbourne had completed their title defence with a goalless draw, it was primarily of the future that he spoke.

It has become something of cliché for managers to talk about taking their side to "the next level", but after a season in which Shelbourne led the league from beginning to end and confirmed their status as the country's best team, it's not that surprising that Fenlon signalled to his current squad that he is looking to raise the stakes again at Tolka Park over the next couple of years.

Referring to the club having already signed Glen Crowe, Bobby Ryan, Colin Hawkins, Richie Baker and Gary O'Neill for next year, Drogheda United manager Paul Doolin (no slouch with a chequebook himself these days) joked that his rival might as well be given next year's silverware as well.

The quality of the signings will certainly cause alarm elsewhere and Shelbourne will probably start the new campaign in March as favourites to complete a hat-trick of titles, but they are scarcely so dominant that they can hope to have it all their own way. If Cork City can pick up where they left off then they definitely look capable of providing a welcome and, one presumes, well-supported challenge from the south.

Consistency was a problem for Pat Dolan's side for two thirds of this season's campaign, but when they finally found their stride, the club proved almost unstoppable. The league badly needs strong contenders from outside the capital and City, right now, look best equipped to take on the current champions.

Having already added to his squad and shown the scale of his ambition by targeting the likes of Crowe himself, Doolin may yet oversee the completion of Drogheda United's transformation into serious, season long title contenders. If so and if the club's long-term development can be sustained then that too will represent a positive development.

Similarly, Stephen Kenny's plan to develop Derry City into a full-time outfit should dramatically improve the club's fortunes after three years in which the Candystripes have occasionally toyed with relegation and invariably failed to drag themselves out of the bottom half of the table.

Within the capital it will be interesting to see how Gareth Farrelly will cope with the loss of so many Bohemians players (Damien Lynch and Stephen Caffrey have also already gone and a couple more are expected to follow) at a time when money is once again tight at Dalymount Park.

And then there is the question of whether Roddy Collins can live up to his own hype at Shamrock Rovers. With the club now finally on the brink of getting into Tallaght, expectations among supporters are set to soar. Collins is not lacking in self belief, but it remains to be seen whether he can bring anything like the sort of success he achieved at Bohemians.

Still, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, as things stand just now, Shelbourne will again have the winning of the title within their power. They claimed this year's title with just one point less than last year's total of 69 points and while there was some shift in the pattern of their play - as demonstrated by the fact that they both scored and conceded more goals than in 2003 - the quality of their play was fairly similar for the most part.

And five costly new recruits suggests Fenlon intends that next year's team will be noticeably better and the squad more rounded in the options it offers, but it is far from a risk-free strategy. Making ends meet at National League clubs is an endless struggle and nobody at Shelbourne pretends that they are an exception.

Despite emerging in recent years as the strongest and most consistently successful side in the country, the club remains poorly supported, with crowds at Tolka Park often falling short of 2,000. When Deportivo La Coruna came to town, more than 10 times that number attended and it seems clear that when Fenlon talks about "the next level" it is progress in Europe that he is referring too.

For all the talk of being "within half an hour of a place in the Champions League group stages", however, it would be foolhardy to suggest that last week's signings would come anywhere close to bridging the gap between Shelbourne and the likes of La Coruna or Lille.

The challenge for Fenlon, Ollie Byrne and everybody else at the club then is to gradually start closing the gap while maximising the return on each year's involvement in European football, maintaining their strong position at home and avoiding another financial crisis. It's a delicate balancing act and one that could, in a variety of ways, end badly.

It's also an approach that obliges others to follow and if the league as a whole doesn't start to become a great deal more effective at generating income, then it's impossible to see how clubs are going to sustain full-time set-ups in such a way that failure to achieve a top-two finish doesn't immediately prompt a crash.

Bohemians already appear to be struggling to keep up, but hopefully the race is only starting and there will opportunities for well-managed and forward-thinking clubs to make up ground.

What's clear for the moment, however, is that it is very much Shelbourne who are making the early running.