Stephen Kenny brings his team to Cork to play for huge stakes and with vivid memories of their last defeat, at the same venue. Emmet Malone reports.

Derry City may head for Cork this morning without the suspended Clive Delaney but they remain fiercely determined to extend their 25-match unbeaten run tomorrow night at the ground where they last lost - way back in May.

"The journey back that night was a pessimistic affair," recalls Derry boss Stephen Kenny as he considers the Carlsberg-sponsored FAI Cup semi-final clash between the sides.

"We were playing a different formation at the time and there were a few chinks in it. We'd also had three players come off injured before half-time and between outstretched legs and crutches sticking out everywhere the bus looked like a casualty ward on the way back.

"Cork had beaten us two-nil and though it was tight - we'd hit the post and they'd gotten a goal in injury time - they'd probably been the better team. It was already our third defeat of the season and if you'd told us then that we were going to win 21 and draw four of the next 25 then - how can I put it? - everyone would have been very surprised."

That, however, is just what the Northerners have done and they embark on the eight-hour bus journey today still firmly in the hunt for what would be a staggering treble, the first leg of which they bagged by winning the league cup at Belfield last month.

"It'll be a tough game and a tough trip," says Kenny. "It's not made any easier by the fact we can't fly down there directly from Derry, but things have been going well for us and when that's the case everything feels that little bit easier.

"The players are in good form, there's very healthy competition for places and there's a lot of confidence around the place. None of that actually wins games for you, of course, but it all helps."

With Delaney gone, Kenny has a choice to make at the back, where either Paddy McLaughlin or Mark McChrystal could come in. So far, he says, he has not made his mind up but if previous experience is anything to go by then he does not have too much to worry about either way.

"Don't get me wrong, he'll be missed," says Kenny, "but we won all three of the previous games he was out for."

McChrystal came in for the victory over Shelbourne in the league while McLaughlin provided the required cover for both the FAI Cup win over Kildare County and the League Cup defeat of Longford Town. Both could make a decent case for partnering Peter Hutton at Turner's Cross tomorrow night.

Elsewhere, there are other difficult choices to be made but Kenny says he is delighted with the range of options he faces before every game these days.

"A lot of the players have come into great form over the last few months. They've shown great form and in some cases matured a huge amount," he says.

"People might not realise that we have 11 players in the squad here who are under 23. There are four under-21 internationals and another couple - Barry Molloy and Killian Brennan - who really should be by this stage but haven't quite got the recognition that I'd certainly believe they deserve."

This game, which is set to attract one of Cork's biggest crowds of the season despite the presence of RTÉ's cameras, will provide the pair with a fine stage on which to show their credentials but it is also likely to end in a dent to the confidence of one team or the other.

And yet Kenny admits to being a little unsure as to whether the outcome could yet have a bearing on the destination of the league title.

"The simple fact is that I don't know whether it will make any difference," he says. "Maybe a loss for one of the teams would leave them free to go off and focus even more clearly on the league run-in, maybe it would knock them back a bit.

"What I would say, though, is that this unbeaten run is something we'll be working very hard to maintain because the fear is that once you lose one you could quickly find yourself having lost two or three.

"The way Cork have been going that could very quickly prove very costly to you."

Barring that sort of slip-up by either team, however, the two clubs remain on course to decide the championship back at Turner's Cross on the final day of the season. In the meantime, a place in the cup final should provide the required motivation tomorrow night.