NOT for the first time in this troubled season, off the pitch shenanigans are detracting from the spectacle on view only now the natives are being militant. Should tomorrow's FAI Harp Lager Cup final at Dalymount Park finish level after extra time, then neither Shelbourne nor St Patrick's Athletic will take part in the penalty shoot out which the FAI has decreed must take place.

Both club chairmen were of one mind last night, and they have agreed not to partake in a penalty shoot out after the FAI declined appeals by both clubs to have a second replay if necessary.

According to the St Patrick's chairman, Tim O'Flaherty, "To have a Cup final decided by penalties when all previous ties were allowed to go to three games is not acceptable really. There seems to be no adequate reason as to why a second replay couldn't be conducted on Wednesday night, except that it's inconvenient to some people.

"I have unsuccessfully attempted to contact FAI officials, but they all seem to have absconded to Wembley," O'Flaherty said. "There's nobody home in Merrion Square. Frankly it's not good enough. They seem to make decisions with total disregard for the people involved. It's just more of the same. But we'll continue to stand up to them."

Fighting talk, matched by his counterpart, Finbarr Flood. "We find this decision totally deplorable. We're baffled. We still don't know who exactly made the decision and for what reasons. We feel it is grossly unfair to the players and the clubs, and indeed the fans.

Heretofore, all Cup ties were granted a second replay if needed, but not, according to the FAI's diktat earlier this week, the final. "Why change the rules halfway through the competition, which it appears as if they've done," asks Brian Kerr, the St Patrick's manager, rhetorically.

Ironically, Kerr was manager of Shelbourne's B side in a play off for the title against Bohemians, when he and his counterpart, Billy Young, refused to conduct a penalty shoot out. The game was replayed the following Wednesday.

All of this aside, the game itself promises much. It could be an even better spectacle, with St Patrick's especially liable to play better.

"Well, I would hope that would be the case but you don't know. There was a lot of razzmatazz relating to last week's match that was different from our normal routine" said Kerr. "Lansdowne Road was very, very unfamiliar to us. There wouldn't be many of our players who have played in international matches there," he quipped. He was in vintage and noticeably more relaxed form yesterday when sidetracked from St Patrick's annual golf outing.

"There was more security men around our dressing room than you would see on a normal day on the streets of Beirut. I wondered whether they thought we were going to come out with machine guns rather than football boots. It was quite an unnatural environment for your run of the mill National League player. Given that, it was a little difficult for everybody, and then the pitch wasn't great."

Certainly all those players who were sampling their first Cup final ought to be the better for it, and Dalymount Park will seem a more natural setting for all of them.

Ominously though, there's been no rain all week, in addition to which last night's testimonial for Terry Eviston was the third game in four nights at the venue, including a youths international and Ceannt Celtic v Brondby.

"That would hardly be the ideal preparation for a Cup final," observes Kerr whimsically. "Maybe Bohs Supporters Club are playing on it tomorrow (Saturday). But," he adds, on a more serious note, "I would imagine it would be in a more reasonable condition."

While there is a strong suspicion that St Patrick's will play better, nevertheless, the feeling has strengthened that Shelbourne may have the greater ability to rise to the big match occasion, what with an array of potential match winners such as Sheridan, Stephen Geoghegan, Dave Tilson and, even if initially kept on the bench, Mark Rutherford.

It's probably more of a 50-50 game now than it was a week ago. The law of averages decrees that it will be a more relaxed affair.