Cassidy focused on winning 1st Division

Captain David Cassidy hailed Shelbourne's return to the Premier Division as “absolutely tremendous” after his side ended the five year wait and sealed promotion with a 4-0 win over Finn Harps on Tuesday night.

Although Cassidy and the rest of the Shels team were noticeably buoyed by the win, the midfield playmaker was quick to point out who the result boosted the most. “It's good for ourselves personally and for the management but for the fans who have been stuck in this league for 5 or 6 years it's absolutely tremendous.”

“You can see it out there,” Cassidy toldextratime.ie after the match, “there's people aged 15 or 16 crying and that's how much this club means to people. They're going to be back in here now next year with huge games every single week.”

For now though, the focus is far more immediate for Shels. “But at the end of the day we still want to win the league” Cassidy said. “We've got our promotion, that's what we wanted but we have a great chance to win the league now and give the club a trophy before we go to the Aviva and win the other trophy.”

With promotion sealed and a cup final in the very near future, it might be tempting to think that the First Division title isn't as meaningful for Shels. But Cassidy disagrees, saying that the FAI Cup final against Sligo Rovers is only “on the horizon after Saturday.”

“We're not going to go thinking about the cup final at all, we want to win the league” he said. “We had three games before tonight- three cup finals. We've won one, we want to go and beat Cork to win the league and then on Sunday morning we'll have a look at Sligo.”

Shelbourne had made a habit of collapsing in the last few games of the season in recent years, but were emphatic in their win over Finn Harps- when they needed three points to be promoted. Cassidy admits that there were nerves in the Shels camp before the match. “Obviously there was going to be nerves but nerves can be good.”

“We played well today” he continued. “I don't think we've had a bad performance in the last couple of weeks. Even in the games where we got defeated, I still think we played well, we just didn't get the rub of the green. But tonight we stood up, every man stood up. We played as a team, we took our chances and won.”