Less than a month ago, the Derry City camp faced an end-of-season run when they had the potential to do the double if they won three games.
Now a Candystripes squad with pride battered by recent events, including the sight of Shelbourne winning the League title in City’s backyard, heads for Dublin on Sunday needing to win the last game of the year to put something close to a shine on what’s been a testing season.
One man used to the pressure and suited to the big stage on that big pitch at Lansdowne Road is veteran Patrick McEleney, about to play the eighth FAI Cup Final of his career, when he will bid for a fifth winner’s medal.
While the Aviva Stadium turf will be a case of fresh fields for a batch of the City squad, McEleney’s at home there, having won and lost Cups and played in big European matches as well.
“I love it, it’s the best place to play in the country,” he says. “The pitch is always good, a massive pitch. If you can get into a rhythm and get moving on it, having played Arsenal and teams like that on it, it’s just an amazing place to play.”
He won his first Cup medal with Derry there in 2012, added another with the Candystripes in 2022 and in the middle came two wins with Dundalk. But as he reflects on a disappointing season, McEleney admits that this City squad lack the cutting edge his Dundalk side possessed.
“There’s room for improvement in every aspect,” he says. “As players, we didn’t get over the line when we needed to. I have been in changing rooms where you have a slight opportunity and you take it. At Dundalk, over the years, I was there any time we had a slight chance at anything.
“We cracked it in big games, away to Cork in Turner’s Cross, against Shamrock Rovers in Oriel. We could always seize the moment and get there.”
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McEleney regrets how the double opportunity played out. Derry could have been Champions had they beaten St Patrick’s Athletic and Shelbourne in the last rounds of the League but instead lost to both teams.
“I can’t sit here and say it’s been amazing and great, it hasn’t been,” he adds.
“We got to a certain point in the season where people were going, ‘Derry are going to kick on now’, and we just couldn’t hit the button. We were missing key personnel and that didn’t help, but we had multiple opportunities and we just couldn’t do it. But we have a big Cup Final now.
“I was always confident up to the St Pat’s game, going down there we said, ‘we win two games and we win the League’. The second-half down there we missed opportunities, gave away a sloppy goal. It’s easy saying it now, but it’s fine margins all the time.
“We played at home on a Friday/Monday and drew the two games, Bohs and Sligo, hit the inside of the post to go 2-1 up and missed a chance at the back post in the other game, put it over the bar, small details.
“If you unpick those moments, you don’t deserve to win it. Take your moments. I can rest easy knowing Shels deserved to win the League,” he says, admitting there was added pain from seeing that coronation for Shels in Derry.
“Of course, it hurts. There’s no getting away from it. It hurts for everybody, and we have something here that can rectify it slightly, winning one of the two trophies and that’s our aim.”