Keely says team has harder edge now

With his side unbeaten in nine matches, Dermot Keely is happy with the way things are progressing at Tolka Park ahead of this evening's visit of Derry City for the first of the season's live televised games.

The only problem, he admits, is that he thought his side were good enough to win the championship at the start of last season when the only consolation was that at least they didn't blow it at the death again.

"I think people would have seen us as chokers, even people within the club," says the battle hardened Shelbourne boss. "And I think you have to admit that that's fair enough. This season, I think that's changed, though. There's a harder edge to the team now and we saw the benefit of that last week in Waterford when we were really terrible but never looked like losing the game."

The performances from the team have been pleasing throughout, he says, with Pat Fenlon, this week named Opel/Soccer Writers of Ireland Player of the Month for September, Stephen Geoghegan and Richie Baker all at their best during the opening weeks of the new campaign and several of the new recruits adding depth to a panel already containing quite a bit of talent.

For the cameras, he admits however, he would like to see some more flowing football than the team has produced over the past few weeks. Both sides are basically footballing teams at heart but the fact is there is always pressure to produce an attractive contest when the game is being carried live.

"It's a problem," says Keely. "I was watching Sunderland and Villa the other night and I turned it off because it was so poor. A lot of the games there are but they show many and package them well that there are enough good ones to stand out.

"Here they only show a few and they tend to go for games late in the season between the top two teams, games that are always by their nature going to be very tight. If they showed more games then it stands to reason they'd get a broader mix but this one, at least, is at the sort of stage where both teams can afford to go out and play a bit of football, hopefully it will be a good one."

Anyone suspecting that perhaps the Dublin schoolteacher has gone a little soft in his pursuit of the beautiful game can think again, though. Keely readily concedes in the next breath that he will be perfectly happy to see possibly the most technically gifted player with either club just now languishing in the stand tonight.

"I don't really think that there's a good or a bad time to play a club but, yeah, I'm glad that they're coming when Liam Coyle's suspended. He's got something a bit special and he causes us problems every time we come up against them."