Bohemians may be on the brink of completing a dream double but when Longford Town arrive for the Harp Lager FAI Cup final in Tolka Park tomorrow, with a good chunk of the county in tow, they will already have entered the realms of fantasy.
A year after winning promotion to the top flight, they have exceeded just about everybody's expectations by getting to compete in a cup decider for the first time in their 77-year history.
They've not done it the easy way. Wins in Cork and Inchicore were required to get them this far, and although not too many neutrals have given them much hope of upsetting the newly-crowned league champions in tomorrow's sell-out game, their manager is undaunted. Stephen Kenny promised yesterday that his side would "look to play the game with a bit of style (and) win the game by out-scoring Bohemians".
Both teams have problems to contend with in the build-up to the game, with Kenny obliged to wait until tomorrow morning to make final calls on the fitness of central defender Paul McNally (ankle) and Sean Prunty (rib). Roddy Collins is weighing up his options in the absence of Paul Byrne, who is cup-tied.
The Bohemians boss may also have to contend with the loss of Simon Webb who has not trained all week due to an Achilles tendon problem, while the fact that Byrne's most likely replacement, Dave Morrison, is getting married in London this morning has not been the cause for celebration that it might, in other circumstances, have been within the camp.
With Collins reluctant to do without the pace of Trevor Molloy up front, Morrison is likely to retain his place on the right despite only arriving back into Dublin tomorrow morning. With Bohemians having won the two clubs' three league encounters by an aggregate score of 10-2, Kenny admits that Bohemians deserve to be regarded as favourites, "but we've shown that on our day we can beat anybody and there's no pressure because nobody expects us to win".
Nobody, that is, except the sizeable travelling support who will arrive in Dublin expecting a happy ending to a footballing fairytale.
