Jamie Lennon and St Pat's on history hunt 

ON THE CUSP: Jamie Lennon is interviewed for RTÉ before a St Patrick's Athletic training session at Tallaght Stadium in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

History is within the grasp of St Patrick’s Athletic if they can extract the scalp of Istanbul Başakşehir in their Uefa Conference League playoff (7.45pm).

Unlike Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers, the FAI Cup holders have yet to grace the group stages of European competition.

Once again, due to stadium criteria, Pat’s are borrowing the home of their Dublin rivals at Tallaght for this first leg and ticket sales are surging towards a 10,000 sell-out.

Jamie Lennon is the longest-serving player at the club, having spent eight successive years in the first team under a flock of different managers, and surpassed the 200 mark under the latest.

That’s Stephen Kenny, the former Ireland boss back in the League of Ireland since May under the longest contract ever granted to a manager in the league.

Twice in the past the Saints have come up short at the playoff juncture and the midfielder feels the wins over Vaduz and FK Sabah provide a stimulus to break new ground.

League form has been erratic – they languish in seventh position – while their defence of the Cup came unstuck at the first hurdle against Derry City, magnifying the importance of this showdown. They can also double their prize-money to €3.7m.

“This is the third time the club has been in the playoffs and we want to make history,” declared the 26-year-old loyal servant.

“In the last couple of weeks, we’ve shown we can mix it with teams expected to beat us. This is our biggest challenge yet.

“It’s great for the league that Shamrock Rovers have gotten to the group stage and hopefully, we can join them.

“These last couple of weeks in the Conference League has given us confidence for rest of the season. Our new signings have improved us and it’s nice to play different styles with different tactics. Small details at this level can make the difference.” 

Kenny has been there before, guiding Dundalk to the 2016 Europa League phase.

He identified a number of threats posed by the visitors, including Dimitrios Pelkas, the former Hull City winger who faced his Ireland side in Greece’s pair of Euro qualifying victories last year.

“Baskshehir are an uber-aggressive, pressing team who play with speed,” Kenny noted ahead of his 51st club game in Europe.

“If we do reach the league phase, we’ll have done so the hard way by coming through the rounds, not by champions dropping into the competition.

“We must strive to do that because the European wins are really, really special and none would be more special than this one.

“We’ll have to raise our game to another level and if we do that it’ll be a really big night.

Lennon spoke of Kenny’s influence: “The detail the gaffer goes into it, his level of detail, is unbelievable.

“Now it’s up to us to take it in and implement it. His presence around the place in European games is a huge advantage to us.

“We just want to get after teams at home, score goals and bring it with us next week to Turkey.”