Beating Glens can turn season around, says Byrne

Owen Cowzer

While pride is normally enough to ensure the temperature rises for this local turf war, Byrne insists that aside from the clichés about: "being north-south, a battle of the two leagues and who'd be favourites and who won't be," the game has added importance for both sides.

"It's the first round of the Champions League for us. It's a great opportunity for an Irish club to progress in the Champions League.

"We set ourselves a standard last year by reaching the third round and the incentive this year is to go better. We can't sit back and say we did well last year. There's no point."

But Byrne also admits that the significance of the game has increased for Shelbourne as they look to put their disappointing run of games during May and June behind them.

After going seven games without a win, including a Setanta Cup final defeat To Linfield, Shelbourne have got back on track recently with five wins in their last six games. Yet Byrne reckons that a victory over Glentoran will ensure that their winless run will be forgotten about.

"Considering how our season has gone it puts an extra incentive on the game. It's a great opportunity for us to put the nail in the head of how we've been playing. It just wasn't good enough for Shelbourne as a club.

"It's a chance to prove to ourselves and to everybody that we've turned the corner."

Byrne blames their poor run on the side being caught out by the improvements of others rather than any real failing within the Shelbourne team.

"You might even call it a little bit of complacency. There are a lot of factors but I think the biggest factor is probably that teams want to beat Shels now. You don't get easy games anymore.

"Teams come here and they want to turn you over because of how well we've done in the last couple of years. Teams want a bit of that or maybe they're sick and tired of hearing people talking about Shelbourne.

"We've maybe been caught off guard by how hungry they are. We've found that playing teams this year, they've really been at it mentally, physically, in some cases, it's like playing different teams."

The first defeat during their bad run was at the hands of Glentoran's Irish League rivals Linfield and Byrne insists that he and his teammates must learn from that game if they to avoid an unwanted East Belfast double.

"I think there is a lesson we maybe should have learned against Linfield. If it's a high profile game, as we proved last season when we played teams who are a hell of a lot better than us, we matched them. Then we played teams that were maybe lower than us and we were on a par.

"We need to give Glentoran respect and approach it that way. It will be extremely difficult up there, it will be extremely difficult down here. The better team on the night will win, the more disciplined team."

But Byrne did admit that referee, Georgios Kaznaferis of Greece, will be a key man because of the unique and distinctly "unEuropean" type of game that is expected.

"It might tend to be a more physical game than others in Europe. But the referees are the same. If it's between two physical teams, is he going to ref it like a normal European game? If it's a physical game and he allows it, we're going to have to be physical. If it's not, we're going to have to adapt."

On the injury front, Shels could be at full strength.

Defender Colin Hawkins is still carrying a slight thigh strain but should be okay as should Dave Rogers (neck) while Richie Baker (foot) is also expected to be fit.

Alan Moore (thigh) is back in full training though Fenlon admitted he, and new signing Alan Reynolds, are unlikely to start.