Bohemians have been a bogey side for Cork this season. The teams drew in the league and in the cup at Turner’s Cross and Bohs won both of their encounters at Dalymount Park. Only Dundalk have a better record against Cork City this season.

Heary has a weakened squad for Friday, missing Aidan Price and Paddy Kavanagh through suspension, and Derek Pender (calf) and Dan Byrne (cruciate) through injury. Roberto Lopes has exams on Friday evening, meaning four potential defenders are missing.

“We’re down a few bodies but we’ll put out a team that can compete on the night,” said Heary. “Last week, with Pender and Mulcahy out, we took the game to Sligo and could have won.

“We gave it everything and it showed you how well we can compete against the teams with a full-time set-up.

“We like to have a go at teams and we have younger players who should have no fear playing Cork in front of a packed house. They should enjoy the occasion.”

As Paddy Kavanagh is ruled out, Kevin Devaney returns from a toe injury to resume his raiding runs down the wing. Dave Mulcahy comes back from suspension and will be in the reckoning for a role in midfield or defence.

Steven Beattie, last week’s man of the match as winger, might revert to the back line where he has provided cover on right and left when circumstances demanded it. Playing Keith Buckley at right-back, as he did against Cork City in the cup, is another option.

But this could also be the opportunity for under-19 defender Stephen Best to step up. Signed earlier this year from Crumlin United, he returned recently from ankle injury and played 90 minutes in last week’s 2-1 victory over Longford Town in the under-19 league.

“I’d have no problems throwing him in and seeing how he copes. He would have had more games except for his injury. It will be a tough game for him to be called in, in front of 5,000 people, but he’ll be competing for selection in Friday,” said Heary.

An end-of-season malaise can often seep through these mid-table games, but this certainly wasn’t the case as both sides attacked from the off. Bohs’ orthodox 4-4-2 clashed nicely with Sligo’s 4-2-3-1, producing an open game and some genuine entertainment for the Dalymount crowd of 1,093.

The Dalymount pitch is definitely starting to struggle under the combined weight of games, the weather, and Bohs’ training sessions. The result was a surface that lent itself to errors – and the returning Anto Murphy was punished for his in the 24th minute. His sloppy forward pass was cut out and fed to Eamon Zayed, whose cushioned pass found Paul O’Conor on the edge of the box. O’Conor skipped over Roberto Lopes’ challenge before toe poking past Dean Delany.

The opener was against the run of play, and Bohs deservedly equalised through a familiar source five minutes later. Karl Moore’s corner was headed only as far as Keith Buckley on the edge of the box. Bucko’s scuffed shot bounced toward Dinny Corcoran at the back post, and the striker steered in his 19th goal of the season to bring the sides level. Corcoran will be searching for a tremendous tally of 20 goals in the last two games, which would be an excellent return for the Donabate man.

The second half started at a high pace. Dinny should have given Bohs the lead after he got on the end of a Steven Beattie cross, but somehow skewed the ball over from 6 yards under pressure from Gavin Peers. Bohs kept attacking, and deservedly got the lead goal through the excellent Beattie. Keith Buckley (credited with an impressive two assists tonight), picked up a loose clearance, and drove at the Sligo defence. His slide-rule pass was gathered at-a-stretch by Beattie, who managed to get the ball out of his feet just in time – firing high into the net before being clattered by Evan McMillan. Amazingly, it was Beattie’s first league goal of the season, which is a surprising stat for someone who has been one of the Gypsies outstanding performers in 2014.

Sligo were Champions as recently as 2012, and they’ve still got real quality in the squad, despite naming only 4 substitutes for this game. The familiar figure of Rafaelle Cretaro spurned a good chance when he fired into the Shopping Centre from 12 yards, but he had the last laugh by setting up the late equaliser. Jack Memery struggled with the Tobercurry Tornado all night, and Cretaro’s whipped cross in the 81st minute was perfect. It found the head of Eamon Zayed who headed powerfully past Dean Delany. The ball came off the underside of the bar, but was clearly over the line as it dropped.

There was still time for late drama as Aidan Price controversially saw red in injury time. Danny North nudged the ball by him and was running toward goal when Price took him out, but the dismissal was harsh. North, with all due respect, was not going to catch the ball – so technically it wasn’t quite a goalscoring opportunity. Sean Grant thought otherwise, and reached for the back pocket. Price will miss next week’s trip to Cork, meaning Owen Heary will have a defender problem with Derek Pender also out. If Bohs get a result next week, they will almost certainly hand the title to Dundalk. With recent Bohs form against Cork in his mind, John Caulfield won’t be looking forward to it.

Bohemians: Dean Delany, Anto Murphy, Aidan Price, Roberto Lopes, Jack Memery, Keith Buckley, Karl Moore (Adam Evans, 86), Eoin Wearen, Steven Beattie, Jason Byrne (Paddy Kavanagh, 68), Dinny Corcoran. Subs not used: Aaron Shanahan; Ryan McEvoy, Jake Hyland, Craig Walsh, Stephen Best.

Sligo Rovers: Richard Brush, Gary Boylan, Gavin Peers, Evan McMillan, Danny Ledwith, Raffaele Cretaro, Seamus Conneely, Paul O’Conor, Gary Armstrong (Ruairi Keating, 71), Danny North, Eamon Zayed. Subs not used: Kalen Spillane, Ross Taheny, Ryan McManus.

Mr. Green Bohemian Man of the Match: Steven Beattie

“Any player should want to finish as well as possible. There are players too who are playing for a place in the squad next season.”

This game comes just over a month after a rescheduled league game at the Showgrounds was decided by the odd goal in five.

Sligo won 3-2 but also ended ahead on yellow cards, 4-1, all of them given out in the tense last 20 minutes of the encounter.

“They’re a good side, but we don’t want them to let them get away from us,” said Heary.

Bohemians have had two fewer defeats in the league than Sligo Rovers and are unbeaten at home since Dundalk’s 2-0 victory at Dalymount at the end of May.

“We have done quite well at home despite the problems early on. We have lost only four games at home,” said Heary.

“The one thing we had to do, was to make sure we were hard to beat, and we weren’t that last week against Pat’s.”

The manager gave his players some time off since losing 3-1 to St Patrick’s Athletic 11 days ago. He also introduced a few novelties into training to help refresh a team that was showing signs of fatigue.

“You can allow for a few players who were tired, but there were some performances that were not up to the standard we have been asking for. We did not impose ourselves on the game,” said Heary of the Richmond Park game.

Captain on the night Derek Pender came off with a calf injury late in that game and he may miss the rest of the season.

“He’s been excellent all season. He’s had to fill in at left-back and he’s done it without moaning,” said Heary.

“He’s gone back to the right side and he’s scored two great goals. He’s been a leader on and off the park.

“He keeps telling me he’ll make it back for the last game. He’s that committed.”

Kevin Devaney (toe injury) is out for Friday but has returned to training and is expected to be available for next week’s match away to Cork City. Dan Byrne (cruciate) is sidelined for the longer-term.

Dave Mulcahy, who did not make it to the St Pat’s game in time due to a major traffic disruption on the M50, is suspended for Friday. But Anto Murphy, who returned from injury to come off the bench against St Pat’s and scored a late consolation goal, has had more time to regain fitness.

Jason Byrne has also recovered from a knee injury that kept him out of the squad against St Patrick’s Athletic.

Steven Beattie is likely to feature again in the back line. But Heary may also take the opportunity to look more closely at some of the players who are in the frame for next season’s squad, among them defender Stephen Best.

“Beating Limerick (2-0, Friday) puts us four points clear of them in seventh. If we were to beat Pat’s, that would leave us level on points with Sligo Rovers who are in fifth and come to Dalymount next week.”

St Pat’s are familiar opposition for Bohs this season. As well as the two previous league encounters, the sides also faced off in both the EA Sports Cup and Ford FAI Cup.

Bohs’ only victory in those four meetings came in the EA Sports Cup (3-2) in May but Heary’s men can feel unlucky not to have won the drawn league game at Dalymount in July (1-1) and not to have forced a replay in the Ford FAI Cup quarter-final at Richmond Park earlier this month (2-3).

“Bar the first league game at Richmond in April (1-3), we’ve always given them a game,” he said. “We threw everything at them in the Cup game. We were very disappointed to come out with nothing having been in touching distance of bringing them to a replay.”

The date for this game was brought forward to Tuesday due to St Pat’s Ford FAI Cup semi-final against Finn Harps this Sunday in a competition they have not won since 1961.

Even though the defending league champions are all but out of the title race and have a massive Cup tie looming, Heary is not expecting the game to be any easier.

“We can’t be worrying about what Pat’s are thinking. We have to do our own job,” he said.

Younger members of the Bohs squad have come in for much praise this season, but it was the experienced trio of Jason Byrne (36), Dave Mulcahy (36) and Anto Murphy (32) that provided the talking points after the win against Limerick.

Byrne and Mulcahy grabbed the goals, while Murphy returned after seven weeks out with an ankle injury.

Heary added: “It was great to have Anto back. In the last few minutes, we were able to throw him on to get some game-time to get his sharpness and awareness back up.

“He had a tough tackle put in on him too, so that was a good test. He’s back sooner than we expected but you could see he was exhausted after five minutes.

“Jayo came up trumps with a lovely little dink and Muller, who was unlucky not to score against Rovers too, had a good finish to allow us to see out the game easily enough in the end.”

Paddy Kavanagh (personal commitments) returns to the squad, but Jason Byrne (knee) and Eoin Wearen (foot) are minor doubts. Kevin Devaney (toe) and Dano Byrne (cruciate) remain sidelined.

Pic by Eddie Lennon: eddielennonsportingimages.com

The game had an ‘end of season’ feel about it. Two teams with no relegation fears and no cup priorities cancelled each other out for the first 20 minutes before Dinny Corcoran burst through the Limerick defence for the first real chance. His left-footed effort wrong-footed Barry Ryan, but the Limerick keeper was able to stick out a toe and deflect the ball over the bar. The Limerick defence looked vulnerable when on the back foot, and wide runners Steven Beattie and Karl Moore were causing problems at will.

The opening goal stemmed from a Beattie run down the right. He found Jason Byrne at the edge of the box, and the Bohs veteran stepped inside the defender before shooting low at Ryan. The Limerick shot-stopper could only parry the ball back out to Byrne, who squeezed the ball in from 6 yards. His Samuel Eto’o-esque old man celebration was made all the more ironic when he was removed at half time following what looked like a muscle injury!

Limerick came out of the blocks at a ferocious pace in the second half. The visitors really deserved an equaliser, and only two last-ditch blocks from Roberto Lopes denied Rory Gaffney. Dean Delany was also called into action when he clawed the ball off the line following a goalmouth scramble. Limerick appealed that the ball was over the line, but the linesman wasn’t for moving.

Bohs’ killer goal came against the run of play, and was painfully easy from a Limerick point of view. A Karl Moore corner was floated all the way to the back post – and Bohs captain Dave Mulcahy simply nodded it in from 8 yards. Limerick had no man on the far post – and the ball flopped meekly into the goal with Barry Ryan flailing. Sub Adam Evans should have made it three in injury time, but his effort skewed horribly wide.

Four games left for Bohemians in a promising season. Owen Heary will be targeting a top half finish as the Gypsies travel to Inchicore to face St Pats next Tuesday.

Bohemians; Dean Delany, Derek Pender, Roberto Lopes, Aidan Price, Jack Memery, Steven Beattie, Dave Mulcahy, Eoin Wearen (Anto Murphy, 82), Karl Moore (Adam Evans, 91), Jason Byrne (Keith Buckley, 46), Dinny Corcoran. Subs not used: Ryan McEvoy, Jake Hyland, Stephen Best, Aaron Shanahan.

Limerick: Barry Ryan, Patrick Nzuzi, Samuel Oji, Stephen Folan, Prince Agyemang (Ian Turner, 56), Shane Duggan, Shane Tracy, Lee Lynch, Ross Mann (Keiran Djalili, 56), Shane O’Connor, Rory Gaffney. Subs not used: Shane Cusack, Michael Leahy, Darragh Rainsford, Val Feeney, Colm Feeney.

Mr. Green Bohemian Man of the Match: Roberto Lopes