Bohemians v BATE Borisov Dalymount Park, 7.45:

If any tapes of last week's game between BATE Borisov and Bohemians reach supporters of 1860 Munich, they will surely cause renewed dismay that a club of the German's stature could have gone out of last year's Inter-Toto cup by a humiliating, five-goal margin to a team that could have been made to look so, well, ordinary by the Irish champions.

Perhaps they are much better than the contest suggested, and this evening's return leg at Dalymount Park will provide more accurate evidence of what the Belarussians are made of.

They will, however, presumably have travelled knowing that, whatever about their heroics of last summer, another performance like last week's and it is Stephen Kenny's side which should progress to meet Rosenborg in next week's second round of these Champions League qualifiers.

Kenny hopes to stick with the same team that lost narrowly in Borisov, with Colin Hawkins likely to retain his place as much because of his desire to start as because anything he has done since returning home that might suggest he has overcome an Achilles tendon problem.

Elsewhere, the Bohemians manager will resist the temptation to shuffle his pack and instead stick with the line-up that made an even game of it in the away leg without really threatening to get the goal that would have made victory tonight merely a matter of holding on to what they had.

The greatest concern for the Irish champions this time, however, is that they themselves concede a goal. To date they have kept just two clean sheets in the league, one against UCD and another against Drogheda, and BATE have proven themselves to be a prolific outfit both in Europe over the past couple of seasons and at home during the last few months. Such a slip up would leave the Dubliners needing to score three times, something, one suspects, that would prove beyond them.

As he and his players completed their preparations for the game yesterday, however, Kenny insisted that the initiative belonged to his side even if the away leg had not gone quite as well as it might have given the strength of the performance.

"They've won away to Dinamo Tbilisi and Munich, so we certainly can't take anything for granted," he says, "but I do feel that the momentum will be with us. In the circumstances their style is probably best suited to a counter-attacking game, so it will be up to us to press forward and that's what I hope we will do."

The former Longford Town manager admits that his attack's inability to pose more of a threat last Wednesday is a worry but, he adds, "it's something we've looked at a lot since we got back and I think we'll do better."

BATE's form appears to have taken a slight dip of late, with the Belarussian champions suffering their second successive league defeat at the weekend when they lost to Dinamo Minsk. As important to Kenny as the result, though, is the fact that the team's big and prolific striker, Pavel Biahanski, missed the game through injury and is reported not to have made the trip.

The striker contributed a good deal to his team's effort, both in defence, where he cleared several corners, and attack, in the first leg, and even with the talented attacking midfielder Igor Chumachenko fit enough to start again the locals will look on the under-21 international's absence as a bonus.

"I think they'll flood midfield and just leave the one lad up front, which will make it difficult for us," says Kenny, "but if we get a crowd in and give them something to shout about then it's not exactly going to be easy for them either."

RTÉ Radio 1 will broadcast live commentary of tonight's game on medium wave. A collection for the children of Vesnovo orphanage near Minsk will be held at the game.

Twenty-three years after his father Pierce last represented Ireland at senior international level, Ryan O'Leary is one of six uncapped players included in an 18-strong under-17 squad for a four-team invitation tournament in Hungary.

The Irish will play Slovakia, Israel and Hungary in the group stages, with the first of their games taking place on August 13th. .

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDER-17 SQUAD: S Supple (Ipswich Town), R Duggan (Stoke City), M Keane (Belvedere), D O'Dea (Celtic), M Synnott (Ipswich Town), R O'Leary (Aberdeen), M Reilly (Shelbourne), D Stapleton (Reading), G Flynn (Lifford Oldtown), J P Kelly (Liverpool), C Gallagher (Gweedore Celtic), I Morris (Leeds Utd), D Gibson (Manchester Utd), J Hayes (Reading), R Gaynor (Millwall), A Stokes (Shelbourne), B Clarke (Maymount), S Kelly (Kingdom Boys). Manager: N O'Reilly.