Cork City v Shamrock Rovers
Injury-hit Cork showed admirable resilience last week when scoring twice late on to beat Rovers 3-1 at Tolka Park, giving one the impression that, with a fully fit squad, they should be there or there about in respect of winning the title come the end of April.
Dave Barry's list of injuries is showing little sing of abating this week either. Skipper Declan Daly and Derek Coughlan are fit again but Phil Long aggravated a knee injury at Tolka Park and is out along with Dave Hill, Mark Herrick and Brian Barry Murphy.
Rovers expect to be unchanged with Sean Francis challenging for a starting place after playing the whole 90 minutes in Tuesday's Leinster Cup win over Kinvara Boys.
Paul Stokes came on as a substitute in that game, but is still several weeks away from being fit enough to stake a claim in the first team following a groin operation.
Last two seasons: 1996/97: Cork 0 Shamrock Rovers 1, Shamrock Rovers 0 Cork 1, Cork 1 Shamrock Rovers 1; 97/98: Shamrock Rovers 1 Cork 3.
Recent league form: Cork: LWWDW: Rovers: WWLDL.
Leading scorers: Cork: O'Brien (four); Rovers: Cousins (eight).
Betting: Home: 4/6, Draw: 9/4, Away: 4/1.
Referee: J Casey (Waterford).
UCD v Bohemians
UCD's goalscoring problem is threatening to ruin their season. They've scored just 10 goals in the league so far and haven't scored in their last four games - if you exclude an own goal by Sligo's Steve Birks.
Mick O'Byrne, who has played much of the season in midfield, is an obvious solution to the problem and Theo Dunne agrees that it's an option they have considered.
Eamonn McLoughlin and Eoin Bennis have an opportunity to win back their places as injuries to Damien Bolger and John Martin look like keeping them out of the side. Bohemians wait on James Coll who has a dead leg but is expected to be fit enough to play.
Last two seasons: 1996/97: UCD 0 Bohemians 2, Bohemians 1 UCD 0, UCD 1 Bohemians 2. 97/ 98: Bohemians 0 UCD 0.
Recent league form: UCD: WLLDD; Bohemians: DDWDD.
Leading scorers: UCD: Sherlock (three); Bohemians: Parkes and Lawlor (five each).
Betting: Home: 2/1, Draw: 7/4, Away: 6/4.
Referee: P Dempsey (Dublin).
First Division
Bray Wanderers may give a debut to Pat O'Toole, the former Shelbourne midfielder, who had an abortive spell at Leicester City at the turn of this decade, in tomorrow's main match against St Francis at Baldonnel.
The technically gifted O'Toole, 32, joined Pat Devlin's ever-expanding squad along with ex-UCD striker, Darren O'Brien, last week. However, O'Brien has a knee injury and won't feature tomorrow.
Also still out of the Bray side with injuries are club captain Anthony McKeever and Anto Whelan.
Wanderers will doubtless want to bounce back from last week's home defeat to Waterford which carried the added price of losing the leadership.
Nothing seems to have changed for St Francis. They've got the same number of points now as they had at the same stage last season and their injury problems remain. Noel Griffin, Paul McNally, Colm Talbot, Derek Watters and Alan Mullen are all out tomorrow. Monaghan have signed striker, David Nugent, on loan from Drogheda until the end of the season and he should start against Longford Town at Gortakeegan. Mick Scully (suspended), Sean Murray (leg) and Derek O'Neill (calf) are out. Longford report no injuries.
Betting courtesy of Paddy Power.
