UEFA Cup First round, second leg: In a city already established in recent years as a graveyard for Irish rugby, no one in the Shelbourne camp needs to be reminded that the club faces an uphill task if they are to dispel the notion amongst locals that Lille is a place where Ireland's dreams of every sporting kind are always destined to come crashing off the rails.

Having arrived in the city, where Munster cruelly lost out to Stade Francais in the 2001 European Cup semi-final, on Monday, the Dubliners were upbeat yesterday about their prospects of upsetting their much more highly-rated UEFA Cup opponents.

The bottom line, however, is that the visitors must defy almost overwhelming odds if they are to achieve what would be the tantalising prize of group-stage European football.

At first glance the tie looks evenly balanced after the game two weeks ago which finished 2-2 thanks to Glen Fitzpatrick's late goals.

Lille's first-half performance at Lansdowne Road suggests they are actually very strong favourites, although the fact that the French could somehow have allowed the opportunity to make certain of their place in the next round slip through their fingers with a dismal second-half performance has been seized upon as a sign of weakness by one or two of the Irish here this week.

"You can look at the first half of that game in two ways, either they were very good or we were very poor," says Shelbourne midfielder Alan Moore, "but what's important to us now is that a really good side would have finished the game off and by letting us back into it they've proven that they're vulnerable."

If he confined his characterisation of the French to their performances on the road the former international might indeed have a strong point, but with Lille now second in the league here having scored nine goals without reply in four home wins and a draw they look to be above such accusations of windiness at the club's Metropole stadium.

At the weekend they beat Metz 4-0 there to lie just a point behind Monaco at the top of the table, and they have benefited since the trip to Dublin from the return to fitness of their Slovenian midfielder Milenko Acimovic.

"He is a technically gifted player and a big, strong lad who is difficult to knock off the ball," says Chris Hughton of a player who has thrived since moving to France in the wake of an unsuccessful spell at White Hart Lane, where Hughton is a coach.

"His best position is probably playing just off the front two and his best quality is probably that he has a tremendous strike. He is a very hard striker of the ball and when he shoots from distance he can be difficult to stop."

Lille have been producing goals from a variety of departments both in their eight league games and their previous European outings in the Intertoto Cup. The team's skipper, Philippe Brunel, has already scored four times in domestic competition from wide on the left of midfield, while Mathieu Bodmer, the scorer of his side's opening goal in Dublin, was in outstanding form at the weekend.

For his part, Pat Fenlon insists that the visitors have shown by now that they too can score a goal from an unexpected source when required. But his initial dilemma is how best to keep things tight, for the Shelbourne manager doesn't feel that a fast and open game will do much for his side's prospects against strong opponents on foreign soil.

"We're expecting a hard night because I think they'll go for it from the start, try to kill the tie off and not make the same mistake they did in Dublin of taking their foot off the pedal once they've got their noses in front," says Fenlon.

Although he declines to say how his side will line out, it seems almost certain he will stick with the 4-5-1 formation that has served his side well recently.

The main question is, with injury ruling Joseph Ndo out, whether Jason Byrne will revert to the right side of midfield allowing Fitzpatrick to start or, as seems more likely, is Alan Cawley to be rewarded for his second-half display two weeks ago with a place in the starting 11?

"In my own mind I'm settled how we're going to play," says the manager. "Maybe we should give it a go from the start and see whether we could rattle them, but I think we've done well playing a different sort of game, a more patient one, although if they were to get an early goal then we'll have to change things."

Central to his initial approach will be the return of Stuart Byrne who, like Moore, was suspended for the first leg. The Dubliner, a naturally more attacking player, will again be expected to occupy the space between the defence and midfield where he will have particular responsibility for the containment of Acimovic.

"It's a role I've had to sit down and think about a bit," he says. "Normally I would be looking to make runs forward whenever the chance arose but I've just had to take that out of my game.

"It's taken a bit of adapting to, but you do it when you see the benefit in terms of the overall system the team is adopting. Like everyone else I enjoy playing against quality players and this is the approach that has got us further than anybody expected in Europe so I'm hardly going to complain."