Preview: Dundalk vs Sporting Fingal

Second-placed Dundalk are hosts to Sporting Fingal on Thursday night in Oriel Park, hoping to regain top spot of the Eircom First Division from Shelbourne for at least a night. (kick-off 19:45). The Louth-men lie two points adrift of Shels having drawn two of their last three league games, whilst the Reds have won their previous three outings.

Dundalk boss John Gill admits that Fingal will be a difficult hurdle to overcome, however, whatever the result, he insists that there is a long way to go in the race for title glory. In his programme notes for Thursday’s game, Gill wrote: “We can look forward to this game with a little bit of confidence now, but we know that Fingal are dangerous opponents. There’s a long way to go; we’re not even looking at winning leagues or anything like that. We’re going to try to maximise what we can get out of each training session and each game. Let other people panic about who’s going up and who’s not going up. All we can do is just focus on what we’ve got to do in front of us.”

Dundalk will be without right-back John Flanagan for the next six weeks due to required surgery on an ankle injury. Ian Ryan is also a doubt with a groin strain. However, on the plus side, central midfielders Paul Shiels (suspension) and Paul Crowley (broken nose) both return after missing the trip to Wexford, while captain Aidan Lynch (flu) should also come back into the squad. Up front, John Gill has the welcome headache of choosing between Trevor Vaughan, Robbie Martin and Tiarnán Mulvenna for the two front slots.

Sporting Fingal have been on form lately with wins over Waterford, Limerick 37 and Athlone Town. The fixture against the Lilywhites will be the final league game for Sporting ahead of the summer break and manager Liam Buckley has every reason to be satisfied with his team's recent progress.

"Our form has been fantastic of late and to score three goals in each of the last three games has been very pleasing," said Buckley.

"Defeating one of our main competitors, Waterford United, on Monday night was a big result for us as it put us level on points with them in third position. It also keeps us on the coat tails of the pacesetters.

"The tough games keep coming. Dundalk have shown this season why they were pre-season favourites to win the league and they'll be confident of getting a result on their home patch."

In team news, defenders Aidan Collins and Philip Byrne, who were both absent against the Blues due to calf and groin injuries respectively, will be given fitness tests ahead of the fixture. Stephen Caffrey also comes back into the contention for Sporting after missing most of the season of the campaign to date with a calf problem.

Striker Robbie Doyle has been in red-hot scoring form recently, netting six goals in his past five matches, and he'll be looking to continue that streak against his former club.

Kick-off on Thursday is 19:45.