Emmet Malone talks to former UCD stalwart Ciarán Kavanagh aboutthe up-and-down struggle with his new club Dundalk

Ciaran Kavanagh still has fond memories of a long career at Belfield Park, but after a final season in Dublin 4 during which he and his team-mates first played in Europe and then reacquainted themselves with the agonies of a relegation battle, he could hardly be blamed for hoping that he was moving on to better things last summer when he joined Martin Murray at Dundalk.

The move seemed to be a bit of a dream come true for Kavanagh, who is 29 now, but had grown up in the town and then got the opportunity to move back there last year when a job offer came his way.

Six months later it's all got a painfully familiar look about it, with Dundalk, for all their new recruits, struggling to clamber out of the bottom three while hoping that the Carlsberg FAI Cup might provide a monthly distraction until well into the latter stages of the campaign.

It's not the way it was supposed to be. "Well, I suppose I thought that if things went well that we could certainly be a top-six side," sighs Kavanagh now as he ponders the list of crucial games that the team is facing into over the coming few weeks.

"Instead we've got a tough game (at Oriel Park this evening) against (Finn) Harps, who'll be looking at us as being a good draw, in the Cup, followed by games against Galway and Longford in the league. They're all huge games for us right now and by the time the three of them are out of the way we'll know a lot more about how our season is going to turn out." Like his manager, Kavanagh points to the trouble so many new players had settling down together early on as having been a contributory factor to their current plight.

"It's not an excuse, though, and it's not something you can dwell on. The fact now is that we have a chance to get to the semi-finals of the Cup and we have to take it, in the league we have to aim to win our next match and hope Longford lose theirs . . . if that happens and we beat them then we're back on terms and it's all down to the last few games."

A couple of months back Sunday's draw in Cork might have been taken as encouraging, but taking a point from a game in which the opposing manager concedes his side were second best can hardly be considered a good day's work anymore. Kavanagh does mention the fact that Dundalk have beaten Bohemians, run Shelbourne close once and Rovers close twice this season as an indication that they are, perhaps, a stronger collective unit than their league position would suggest but he's certainly not arguing that any great injustice has been done to them.

"No, we've got to take responsibility for the problem and get on with putting it right," he says. "The fans and the board deserve a lot more than this and we've all let them down. We haven't taken the chances we've created up front, we've let in too many goals and our midfield are probably guilty of not getting the ball into the box enough on the one hand and not doing enough defensively on the other.

"It's not that hard to see where things have gone wrong, really, but what can you do other than get on with improving them. At least I know from my time with UCD that you just keep going, looking to take points off anybody and everybody until the very last game of the season."

Both sides are close to full strength tonight with Donal Broughan the only absentee from Murray's line-up and Johnny Kenny probably the solitary casualty in the Harps camp. Broughan's suspension means that Aaron Callaghan returns to the home side's starting line-up while Kenny's injury should result in Brendan Devenney again playing wide in midfield for the visitors while Niall Scully again partners Kevin McHugh in attack.

Route to the quarter-finals: Dundalk bt Galway 0-1 (replay); Kilkenny City 2-3. Finn Harps bt Greystones 5-1; Shelbourne 2-1. Betting: Home: 4/5, Draw: 11/5, Away: 3/1.