Hunt for honours drives Bohemians

With the fight for the League now over nobody up at Dalymount Park needs to be reminded of just how important Sunday's Harp Lager FAI Cup semi-final against Bray is for Bohemians.

A place in Europe next season is all but guaranteed for Roddy Collins's side at this stage but after such a strong campaign that would scarcely look like much of a haul.

It is certainly not something that Kevin Hunt wants to have to settle for at this stage. Having arrived at the club from Singapore halfway through last season's relegation battle the 24-year-old Englishman has acquired a taste for life at the right end of the table and has gotten used to thinking in terms of winning the first honour of his career here.

"It's not something that we would have thought much about when everybody got together for the first time last summer," he admits "but by the time we were through the first round of league matches I think people were looking around at the sort of quality we had and thinking `well, there's no reason really why we should be going for the title'." Now, of course, the priorities have shifted and Hunt reckons that it's all up for grabs in the Cup this weekend.

"Normally you expect to still be in it up until the last match with the sort of record we have in the league but you can't argue with the fact that Shelbourne lost one all season. This is different though. Bray will be very tough opposition but it's all we have left now and we're really determined to make it to the final."

If the Dubliners do make it to the Cup final then nobody will have done more to earn the big day out than the tireless midfielder from Chatham. Having started his career at Gillingham but left for Hong Kong at just 20 after becoming frustrated by the lack of first team opportunities at the English club, Hunt sounded unlikely to hang around for the long haul when he arrived in Dublin last year.

After performing solidly throughout the tailend of his first campaign and shone in his second, the midfielder has just agreed a two-year extension to his contract with Bohemians. He and his wife Fay would love to return to Hong Kong some day, he says, but right now both feel that Dublin is the city to be in.

Collins must have been happy to keep him here too for Hunt has shown himself to be a good ball winner, fine passer and energetic worker in the centre of the field, qualities that have just earned him a place in the PFAI's team of the season and qualities that might well prove decisive come Sunday.