Finn Harps will be there. The match officials will be there. And doubtless a few interested locals will stick their heads in to see if there's a match going on. But as of last night Kilkenny City club officials remained adamant that they would not turn up for their FAI Cup quarterfinal replay in Ballybofey this evening.

The club's secretary, Jim Rhattigan, yesterday wrote to the FAI informing the association that they would be unable to fulfill the fixture due to the number of players that would unavailable this evening. But last night there were still those, at both Finn Park and Merrion Square, who were expressing the hope that City officials would "see sense" and travel north.

FAI general secretary Bernard O'Byrne made it clear there was no way out of the difficulty other than for Alfie Hale and his team to play the game. "The time for objections to be made about the timing of the replay was when the date for the game was announced a few weeks back, not now that they suddenly realise that they have problems," he said yesterday.

Rhattigan, though, insists that City's problems grew worse over the weekend when the already extensive injury list was added, while Michael Reddy's call up into the under-18 squad for this evening's international game in Belfast has been a further blow.

Harps manager Charlie McGeever expressed some sympathy for Rhattigan and his opposite number last night, but said that the decision was out of his hands and, at this stage, beyond the control of his club. The game, he said, had always been scheduled for Tuesday rather Wednesday in order to avoid a clash with a televised Premiership match.

"Now many of our players have made arrangements to be available for a Tuesday game," he said, "and to make matters worse the game being televised on Wednesday is the cup replay between Manchester United and Chelsea, something that would be likely to take very considerable revenue away from us if the game was to be put back."

Hale, on the other hand, insists he would be scarcely able to field a team if he were to show up at Finn Park this evening. Five players were out injured on Saturday and the City manager maintains that even before the question of any player's unavailability due to work commitments had been looked into, or the couple of minor knocks reported at training last night had been seriously considered, he was down to around 13 or 14 of his 20 strong squad . . . of whom two are goalkeepers.

"Maybe people want to see is a situation where we go there and have to stick our reserve goalkeeper, John Connolly, on out on the wing after 20 minutes because of injury," he said last night. "Is that what the cup is supposed to be about now? Well, if it is then Harps can have their semi-final place and all that goes with it."

Sadly, this isn't the first time this season that there have been problems with the running of this competition. In fact, there were irregularities in both of the previous rounds, with one of the incidents also involving Finn Harps.

On that occasion their first round opponents, Dublin non-league club Belgrove, opted to concede home advantage to the premier division outfit in the event that their first round clash required a replay. It did, but when the second game was initially postponed due to the pitch at Ballybofey being unplayable, Belgrove's board changed their minds about where the game would be played and their right to do so was upheld by the FAI.

There was much talk of being fair to a minnow, which was touching of course, but the fact remained that the association appeared to be willing to take decisions and then work on justifying them afterwards.

A few short weeks later the association was far more blatant in its disregard for the rules, openly instructing clubs involved in the second round that they were to ignore the rule relating to the timing of replays in order to ensure that none would clash with or detract from the senior international against Paraguay or representative game between the league and senior B sides.

The reason for this, one presumes, is that either the officials who had mapped out the season and scheduled the various rounds of the cup had failed to take account of possible international dates, or the people who conducted the negotiations with the Paraguayans regarding the friendly international simply reckoned that the main domestic cup competition's rules could be bent.

It all adds to the growing impression amongst clubs in difficulty that, when it comes down to it, then off pitch as well as on it, anything is possible if you apply yourself with enough dedication and ingenuity.