Drogheda United boss Mick Cooke believes the first allLouth FaIFord Cup semi-final clash will be a great occasion for fans and the former Shamrock rovers manager believes league form will go out the window when they face dundalk tomorrow (1.45pm).
"obviously it will be a great occasion on Sunday, it's the first time both Louth teams have met in a cup semi-final. We should have a full house, there is a great buzz around drogheda for the game," he said.
"The matches I've had with dundalk since coming to drogheda have all been fantastic and all of them have been played in a great spirit, I can't remember one bad moment from any of our games.
"League form goes out the window in cup semi-finals, but especially when you're playing a local derby. It's all about the day, I also wouldn't write dundalk off for the league just yet, there's three games to go and if you look at what happened last season, all the top teams lost in the run-in, there's a lot of football to be played."
Cooke will have no injury, or suspension concerns ahead of tomorrow's FaI Ford Cup semi-final as david Cassidy, Shane grimes, alan Byrne and alan McNally are once again available after serving suspensions. Cooke, who represented drogheda as a player between 1980-1984 believes when it comes to local derbies, a manager can be grateful for having his whole squad available: "all you can ask for these games is to have a fully fit squad, which is what we have. on our day we fear no-one, the aviva is a massive carrot for both teams and it will be a great final.'
"everyone has had game time over the last three weeks, so I'm really happy with that. We've had some good performances, but in the last two games we we have given the opposition two goal head starts, but we were unlucky not to take anything from the Cork game and even in the Shels game we had good chances and the lads played well. We will be going into the game confident."
In the other semi-final, Shamrock rovers travel to Sligo with a place in the final up for grabs. over the last three seasons, both rovers sides have dominated, with rovers winning the 2010 and 2011 titles, and last year, Sligo won their first league title since 1977.