Reds favoured in Cup replay

Reds favoured in Cup replay

Pat Fenlon’s Shelbourne are widely expected to complete their passage to the last eight of the FAI Carlsberg Cup when they meet Sligo Rovers for the second time in five days in tonight’s third round replay at Tolka Park. Kick-off: 7.45pm.

Stuart Byrne, who sustained a nasty head injury during last week’s Uefa Cup tie in Ljubljana, is still unavailable, so the central midfield pairing is expected once more to be Thomas Morgan and Jim Crawford.

Richie Baker was in excellent form in the first game on Sunday, and will more than likely keep his place on the right with Ollie Cahill on the left.

Following his exceptional performance for the Irish under-21s in Poland on Tuesday night, winger Wes Hoolahan will hope to break back into the Shels side in the coming weeks, although last night’s game may come too quickly for him following his return from Gdansk with the rest of the Irish youngsters on Wednesday.

Jason Byrne and Ger McCarthy started up front for Shels at the weekend, but Stephen Geoghegan will come into contention for a starting role tonight after impressing in a 12-minute cameo appearance on Sunday night.

Shels are nine games unbeaten on Irish soil, and even in their only defeat in the past two months, in Slovenia last week, they demonstrated a good level of form.

That dipped for the first meeting between these sides at the Showgrounds last week, but their fans will expect their side to regain something approaching their best form back at Tolka Park this evening.

Sligo manager Don O’Riordan is without a trio of first-choice stars in defender Jim Sheridan, midfielder Gerry Carr and striker David O’Dowd, so he is considerably weakened in all areas of the pitch.

But another defender, Ian Rossiter, returns from suspension, while first-choice goalkeeper Ciaran Kelly, who returned to action after an injury lay-off in Sunday’s game, continues between the sticks this evening.

The Bit O’Red have failed to score in their last two outings, and with O’Dowd missing, the burden will fall on Paul McTiernan to find the goals required to take the north-westerners into the last eight.


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