The standard advice to players in his situation is to get home and rest, but Richie Byrne had more pressing matters to consider yesterday as the clock ticked down to his appearance for Dunfermline in this afternoon's Scottish Cup final encounter with Celtic.

In the morning there were tickets to be collected, and by lunchtime the first of the relatives and friends from back home had arrived and needed entertaining.

By mid-afternoon, he hoped, there would be enough of the travelling party in town so that his own absence would go unnoticed for a few hours although, as he contemplated the prospect yesterday, he didn't seem too sure.

"I have a good few coming over," says the former Shamrock Rovers full back with obvious pleasure, "but I do need to take a bit of time to get my head focused on the game. It's great that they're going to be here and hopefully it'll be a day to remember, but the most important thing for me is to make sure I do my best because it's a huge day for me."

The game will be a remarkable way to end an unforgettable season for the 22 year-old, who was playing with Rovers while finishing off his apprenticeship as an electrician only last August when the Scots came looking to sign him. Now, after a fourth-place finish in the league, there is the chance of a cup winner's medal and already European football is guaranteed.

Ireland under-21 manager Don Givens, a friend of Dunfermline boss Jimmy Calderwood, had already recommended team-mates Noel Hunt and Gary Dempsey to the club but Byrne's route to East End Park was a little circuitous, with the mother of his Scottish girlfriend (they met while she was living in Dublin, working for an airline) talking him up to a friend who knew Airdire's manager who in turn knew . . .

"Yeah, well, it's pretty complicated," laughs the Dubliner, "but it ended up with the manager here coming back to the two lads (Hunt and Dempsy) and asking if they knew anything about me. After that I came over for a couple of trials and by the time I got home from the second one the club were on looking for me to sign."

He admits finding the pace of the Scottish game hard to cope with early on but having made the step up to National League football from the junior game with surprising ease under Damien Richardson and then Liam Buckley, he set about making the required improvement again and had, by the second half of the season, established himself as something of a regular.

"I got my chance because of injuries in February and I think I did fairly well. I've come on in that time and it's been a brilliant experience but I've got another two years here and I'd hope that I'll keep on improving."

The highlight so far has been the 2-1 win at Celtic Park earlier this month, while the most daunting outing was the trip to Ibrox where "they play the music from The Omen as you come out and a few of the crowd who know you're Irish give you a fairly hard time. Compared to that Celtic Park has a really fun atmosphere to it."

In the Celtic game Byrne played on the left side of three central defenders and ended up having to tangle more than once with Henrik Larsson. "He's an amazing player. Not big at all but deceptively quick and strong."

This time he may be at left back and his responsibilities may be a little different. "I'll probably end up keeping an eye on (Stilian) Petrov although I think he cuts inside a lot so then I'll have to watch out for (Didier) Agathe getting forward. It should be great," he adds, "and we've shown we can beat them so hopefully we can do it again."