Looking back on it now, Bohemians full-back Tony O'Connor finds it hard to believe. It's almost nine years since the Dubliner crossed the city to join the Phibsborough outfit from St Patrick's and he's still waiting to win his first major honour with the club.

Three times Bohemians have finished second in the league while there's also the matter of last year's defeat by Shelbourne in the cup final. Nearly is something the 34-year-old defender knows all about at this stage. That, and how it never won the race.

Having all but waved goodbye to their chances of ending the club's 23-year-old run with a championship title at Richmond Park in the middle of last week, nobody at Bohemians needs to be told just how much is at stake when Shamrock Rovers come to Dalymount Park this evening for the first of the weekend's big Harp Lager FAI Cup matches.

Whoever wins will go forward as favourites to next month's final. Both would fancy their chances of winning and there certainly can't be any clubs about more hungry for the silverware.

Though his manner is pleasantly laid back, and he tends to make a joke of his predicament, O'Connor, who has just signed a new one-year contract with Roddy Collins's side, could probably do with the medal more than most.

A consistently strong performer at the club since his arrival in the summer of 1992, he admits to having come with great hopes to a club that had rounded off the previous season with a 1-0 win over Cork City in the cup final at Lansdowne Road.

"Yeah," he laughs, "I certainly saw the place as somewhere I was coming to win another two or three league titles. Instead, they got another two or three over at St Pat's and we've gone painfully close a few times.

"It's not so bad, though. I've always enjoyed my time here and there are a lot of players who go through their entire career without winning anything so I'm thankful at least that I have the league winners medal I got with St Pat's. Obviously, though, it makes it important, not just to get into the final, but to take the next step and win it."

The team's last encounter with Rovers was the rollercoaster league encounter out in Santry a couple of months back when Collins's men came from 4-1 down to win 6-4 but while his manager is plainly anxious to needle the opposition with memories of that Sunday afternoon, O'Connor is more inclined to shrug it off.

"To be honest, I don't think it will count for anything this time. They'll be up for this game and so will we and I don't think either set of players could afford to go out there thinking about what happened back then."

Comfortably the longest serving first team regular at the club these days, O'Connor argues that a team so recently reconstructed after last season's near misses has done well to challenge for both major trophies during this campaign.

He readily admits that it's not quite good enough but points to the increasing professionalism amongst the clubs at the top of the table as being part of the reason that Bohemians haven't managed to end their long barren run.

"The club has come a long way over the past few years. Everything's changed from the number of lads who are full-time, the way we train and the emphasis put on things like diet by everybody at the club.

"But the thing is that all of the clubs at the top have gone the same way. the ones who are being successful now are the ones with teams based around full-time players (O'Connor is, in fact, one of the few remaining first team part-timers at Dalymount), the clubs with FAS schemes, the ones that will go out of their way to keep a promising 19 year-old because they know he has the potential to be a good player a couple of years down the line."

Having played more than 400 first team games, O'Connor realises that it may not be too long before some of the youngsters are eyeing him up as a possible doorway to first team football. Still, he says, "I'm fairly happy with the way my football's been going this season.

"I used to think that when the older players talked about experience, and how much it was worth, it was all a bit of a myth. But I've come to realise that you do learn a few tricks along the way and I've looked after myself better over the past few years so I reckon I've still got a bit more football left in me."