Sligo ready for serious pitch battle

OLD Benbulbin itself could shake tonight, for nothing is more likely to set Sligo pulses racing than the prospect of Shelbourne coming to the Showgrounds for an FAI Cup semifinal. If not, then the pulses have probably stopped beating altogether.

This is not even an ordinary FAI Cup semi final. It has, on the face of it, variety everywhere. A dash of cultures and a clash of styles. Verily, it has the makings of a classic, and perhaps even another one on Monday if it goes to a replay at Tolka Park (5.00). In the abstemious weekend that's in it, this could be a feast of football.

Aside from Cup semi finals, it is a significant weekend in both the relegation (the bottom three are in action tonight and tomorrow) and promotion stakes, before the title comes back into focus on Monday with the crucial and potentially decisive meeting of Bohemians and St Patrick's Athletic in the league at Dalymount Park (3.00). (Sligo will play Dundalk in Oriel at 7.45 if no replay arises out of tonight).

Nevertheless, Shelbourne manager Damien Richardson correctly laments the myopic administration which prevented two two legged semi finals on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and suggests that such a programme could henceforth become a festival tradition.

As things stand, this could he Sligo's season compressed into 90 minutes. It could yet be Shelhourne's as well. Sligo, not that they needed them, have memories to motivate them further - last season's semi final defeat and two subsequent league defeats at home to Shelbourne not to mention the match of the season (nay decade) in their losing League Cup denouement of last November at Tolka.

The Sligo player and manager Steve Cotterill, at their own expense, checked into Sligo's Southern Hotel yesterday. Five training sessions culminating in a final run out this morning were interrupted by a round of golf yesterday. Taking this one seriously? "Slightly," says Cotterill.

"I just felt that taking everybody away gets them on the mettle a bit quicker, and being away from their families makes them mentally tougher when the game comes. The preparations' have been spot on. The players do want to win. They're desperate to win.

Encouraged by last week's handsome return to winning ways against Cork when back to full strength, Sligo will be unchanged. "We're going to take the game to em," vows Cotterill.

"What will be, will be. If we get that little bit of luck tomorrow I won't have to be nervous or worried. That's what I think has been missing in our games against them before. I think we've been good enough but perhaps we haven't been lucky enough."

By lunchtime yesterday, Shelbourne had yet to catch the mood. But an afternoon training session and then an overnight stay in Sligo should have rectified that. Richardson will give Greg Costello (who scored in both Shelbourne's final appearance last year and three years ago), Mick Neville and Declan Geoghegan every chance of proving their fitness, for he knows experience is "the most vital asset of all in a semi final. Ability, nerve, bottle, character and aggression all come second to it."

This, he accepts, will be a night for Shelbourne to stand up and be counted. To me technically we're the best team in the league and I accept the parochial viewpoint of a few who won't agree - but Cup semi finals are about something more, and we're literally going into a cauldron.

"Even when we arrive there will be 1,000 Sligo supporters already in the ground. Before kickoff the atmosphere will be thick with tension. It's the sort of occasion that it you have the slightest element of fear in your make up it will manifest itself."

Not a night for the faint of heart or limb. As Cotterill puts it: "This game is serious." And then through pursed lips he repeats it once more. "This game is serious."