Fenlon: We have nothing to fear

Shelbourne manager Pat Fenlon is expecting a close affair when his charges take on Derry City in the eircom League Cup Final tomorrow night.

“The fact that it’s a cup final should make it even a tighter game with players being more careful and not throwing caution to the winds,” said Fenlon. “It could well be settled by a single set-piece goal, hopefully in normal time and by us.”

The Shels boss has not ruled out the possibility of the match going the full distance, although he takes a relaxed view on penalty shoot-outs.

“We don’t practice penalties and don’t believe in doing so,” said Fenlon. “The fellows will take them on the day and that’s it, you leave it up to them, if they want to take them.

“We have four or five lads who we know will step forward and after that we’ll see how it goes. We’ve got some good penalty-takers and it’s not something I’m worried about, if it comes to that.”

The two sides meet again next Friday in another important match, which could well go a long way towards deciding the destination of this season’s eircom League title.

Fenlon insists that their focus will be firmly fixed on the immediate game, however.

“It’s a one-off game and we’re really looking forward to it, to be perfectly honest.

“It’s a while since we’ve been in a final. We were disappointed with last year’s Setanta Cup final. We didn’t perform then on the day, so that’s something that we want to put straight.”

“We want to show that we can do the business in a final. We not particularly bothered that it’s in the Brandywell.

“As I said, it’s a one-off cup final and we’ve a good record up there going back over the years, so we’ve nothing to fear.”