Take Dundalk out of the equation and even at 30 years of age Shelbourne's Pat Fenlon would be like one of those teenagers Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hansen like to talk about: "Fearless 'cos they've never known what it's like to taste defeat." That'd be Pat, even looking the part . . . if it wasn't for that shower up at Oriel Park.

Three times over the course of a memorable career Fenlon has had a league medal snatched from under his nose because of a defeat by the Lilywhites. Bizarrely, it has happened him with three different clubs - St Patrick's Athletic, Bohemians and Shelbourne. Funny then that first and foremost he associates the town with the happiest of all his playing days.

Those were the days that he spent with Linfield, with the town of Dundalk as a kind of staging post on his trips north, and he still comes over a little dreamy about the club despite a long and varied career.

He had spent three years in the youths and reserves at Chelsea before returning home when he realised that they didn't see the need for a feisty little midfielder who could win the ball, pass it and stick it in the net - odd the way things turn out sometimes, isn't it?

Then there was Fenlon's time with the biggest clubs in Dublin . . . but mention Linfield, where he won a league double and another cup besides, and Fenlon lights up.

"To be honest," he says as he reflects on the two and a half seasons he spent at Windsor Park, "Linfield is the best club I've played for. If they played a lot closer to home I probably never would have left, but the travel became difficult and my wife (Carol) was expecting our first child (a daughter, Alex) and so it became more difficult to keep on doing it."

To some observers, of course, it might have looked like a fairly difficult thing to start doing in the first place - Linfield's reputation, as they say, precedes them. Given that the Troubles were still in full swing when Fenlon started commuting from Dublin, not only to games but also twice a week to training, the player could have been forgiven for being just a little nervous about the journeys north.

"Actually they were the ones who didn't really want me driving up there so I used to go as far as Dundalk and they'd send a driver down to pick me up and then drop me back afterwards," he recalls. His last visit to the club came a few weeks ago when he was a guest at the presentation of this year's championship trophy.

Since then Fenlon and Shelbourne have won a league of their own and both are anxious to make it a double at Tolka Park tomorrow, even if most people at the club are prepared to admit that the league was this year's cake, the Harp Lager FAI Cup no more than its icing. This despite the fact that Shelbourne have been dominant in the Cup for the best part of the last decade.

Already, though, Fenlon is thinking beyond the end of this season. Out of contract after tomorrow he has, over the past while, been talking about a new deal to keep him at Shelbourne for what would effectively be the remainder of his senior career. Aside from juggling the running of a cleaning business and his central midfield duties over the years, Fenlon has also been amassing coaching badges in whatever little spare time he has. So the three-year contract currently under discussion, one which he hopes to have signed by the end of next week, envisages him moving into that side of things during the final year.

"I still have to do my full UEFA badge and hopefully if things go well I might get to do it that year. But the main thing is that what we're talking about now would involve me making myself available on the coaching side in that third year. After that," he says "we'll see what happens."

The long-term goal then is presumably to get into management, although Fenlon, while not ruling out such a move, tends to see talk of it as a little premature. That's understandable given that right now he is centrally involved with the Professional Footballers Association of Ireland (PFAI). He negotiates for his fellow professionals on issues like the state of facilities within the league - some of which he describes as "abysmal" - and the implementation of the Bosman ruling here.

His long-fingering of management is also understandable, too, in the context of the season he's just had.

His influence in the Shelbourne midfield has never been in doubt since he arrived from Shamrock Rovers in the summer of 1997 but if his own particular contribution to the outstanding success of the club over the past nine months needed any independent confirmation it came a couple of weeks ago when his fellow professionals named him as their player of the year.

It is the second time he has won the award and he may yet add the Soccer Writers equivalent to it over the coming days as he was named in their shortlist yesterday.

Has his increased profile been in part due to the team finally acquiring the sort of steel required to win the league? Fenlon himself isn't in much doubt.

"I think (former Shelbourne boss) Damien Richardson was a great manager and I think he was unlucky a couple of years ago because if we had won the league that night in Oriel Park I firmly believe that we would have gone on to win the Cup as well. Initially, though, Dermot (present manager Dermot Keely) probably got a bit of a raw deal from people looking on after he took over.

"Everybody knows that Damien was keen on seeing us entertain people but I don't think Dermot came in and said, `right, we're going to stop playing football'. It was more a case of him saying `well, look, you can do the attacking bit, you all know that, but let's look at the defending again because that's been your problem'."

The upshot has been that some well-established players have gone, although fewer, perhaps, than might have been expected. More importantly, Fenlon believes, the attitude and approach is very different.

"The key thing is probably that under Damien the middle two in midfield were seen as the last line of defence before the back four but now the two strikers are expected to help out when it's required.

"We still play with two wingers, but you know - and this isn't to have ago at Mark Rutherford or Dessie Baker when he played out there - that both of them are going to carry their weight on the defensive side. I mean James (Keddy) and Richie (Baker) are both great on that front."

Both will probably have to demonstrate this tomorrow if Paul Byrne and possibly Gareth O'Connor of Bohemians aren't to cause Shelbourne problems.

But a more interesting battle might be in central midfield. There, Fenlon, who has contributed seven goals this season despite being asked by Keely to concentrate more on the defensive side of his own game, and Paul Doolin should prove quite a handfull for the likes of Kevin Hunt and Stephen Caffrey.

It's the sort of tussle that could decide a Cup final, and Fenlon knows it. He has won on the big occasions. But then he knows a thing or two about losing on them too.