Mahon - Players are ready and willing

An ongoing dispute over bonuses may be somewhat overshadowing the build-up to St. Pats Europa League 3rd qualifying round match against Karpaty Lviv tomorrow night, but according to manager Pete Mahon the players have remained focused on the task ahead of them.

The players are boycotting all media interviews and build-up to the match but Mahon maintains that if the players are distracted, he hasn't noticed. "I didn’t see any signs of it [distraction] last night," he said, "they were obviously talking amongst themselves- that’s a natural thing to expect- but the players were buzzing."

Pats have a daunting task ahead of them, after losing 2-0 to Karpaty in Lviv last week. Shaktar Donetsk loanee Artem Fedetskyi gave the Ukranians the lead on 34 minutes, with Andrey Voronkov scoring a crucial second goal three minutes in to added time right at the death of the match.

But Mahon insists that St. Pats still have a chance to progress."They’re not by any stretch of the imagination unbeatable, but it’ll be difficult" Mahon admitted. "We can’t afford to concede a goal tomorrow night, because I can’t see us scoring four goals against them to be honest."

Mahon was frank about what his side needs to do tomorrow night, but again retained hope in his side's ability. "We need to score at least two goals, which we’ve managed to do in the two previous [European] games that we’ve played in Dublin" .

On the quality of tomorrow night's opposition, Mahon was quick to call them a "good team". "I’ve seen games on TV this year and, obviously tomorrow night will tell the tale, but these are a very good team" he said. "They’re not doing too well in their league, but they got beaten 2-1 a few weeks ago by Shaktar Donetsk who are playing at a really high level in the Champions League and who won this competition [Europa League] two years ago. So you can see that obviously the Ukrainian league is very strong."

The Saints should be able to welcome back Daryl Kavanagh and Stephen Bradley, who missed the first leg through injury. "Kavanagh and Bradley will come straight back in" Mahon said. "We missed Bradley in particular in the first game- we weren’t able to keep the ball for long spells so he would have been a major asset to us."

On Daryl Kavanagh, Mahon thinks that the Waterford attacker should cause Karpaty a few problems tomorrow night. "[Karpaty] will find him a handful tomorrow with the way he plays" he said. It’ll be interesting to see how those two centre-backs cope with us- they got a comfortable enough ride [in the first leg]."

According to Mahon, "there won’t be too many changes from the two previous home games" but Dave Mulcahy's return to fitness gives the Pats manager a dilemma over who to start up front. "We didn’t have Dave Mulcahy here in the last two games so I’ll have to think about that too" says Mahon. "Ian Daly, in fairness to him, did very well in the game [against Karagandy] so that’s a little thing we’ll have to ponder on."

Pats will play the match in Tallaght Stadium, due to the unsuitability of Richmond Park under UEFA regulations, and Mahon thinks that it's "a shame" that the club has to rent the stadium from South Dublin County Council for the night. "It’s not ideal because there’s a special atmosphere here [in Richmond Park]" he said. "Anybody who was here the last time we played would see what European nights mean."

"I really feel that we’d have a great chance of beating them here [in Richmond Park], it’s going to be more difficult in Tallaght," said Mahon, "it’s bigger and the place is not going to be full. I don’t know what kind of crowd is going to be there but I’d say if it’s half full we’ll do well."