Dundalk’s Stephen O’Donnell faces late fitness test ahead of Sligo Rovers tie

Stephen O'Donnell is struggling to shake off the thigh strain he sustained up in Dundalk's win last week over Shamrock Rovers but with so many other players sidelined, Stephen Kenny will wait to see how the midfielder is in the run up to Saturday evening's kick-off at the Showgrounds (kick-off 7.45).

The champions are again without Chris Shields, Dave McMillan, Gary Rogers, Shane Grimes and Sean Hoare for the game but Pat McEleney is set to start despite having limped out of the Oriel Park season opener late on.

If O'Donnell passes his fitness test then, the visitors may well be unchanged while Sligo are likely to bring in Liam Martin who missed their drubbing in Limerick due to suspension.

"We reviewed the Limerick game and watched it back as a group," says manager Dave Robertson. "There were individual errors for goals and we didn't perform to a level that we needed. You can't just write off a 5-1 defeat but what you can do is look at what we can control from now on."

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They will require quite an improvement on last week to control things against the champions but Robertson will point to their surprise 3-0 win at Oriel late last year as evidence that his players can pull something special out of the bag.

In the first division, Cobh travel to Longford town (kick-off 7.30).