Daly hoping solid Saints can thwart Bohs attack to win Cup

Two evenly matched teams will compete in Sunday's FAI Cup final, however, Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic will bring two different styles to the Aviva Stadium for the end-of-season showpiece.

Bohemians, built to attack, and spearheaded by top scorer Jonathan Afolabi who is gunning for his 20th goal of the season on Sunday, while the Saints from Inchicore base their foundations in defence, which has served them well this season, proving the last team to stay in the hunt to dethrone league champions Shamrock Rovers.

Ultimately, St Pat’s ran out of steam as they succumbed on home soil as Stephen Bradley’s men came and conquered by the Camac to secure their fourth title in a row, but for the Saints, they easily achieved their objective by securing European football thanks to an excellent league campaign.

And now, with a European adventure awaiting next season, Jon Daly’s side have the freedom to play without pressure as they seek another FAI Cup victory as they take on fellow Dubliners, Bohemians, at Lansdowne Road on Sunday.

And manager Daly believes that his side have a great chance of bringing the trophy back across town to Dublin 8 if they can remain defensively solid and keep Bohs’ attack-minded unit quiet.

"We’re two evenly matched teams," said Daly, speaking to RTÉ Sport ahead of the cup final. "They are very good offensively going forward, and when they win the ball back, they are very, very quick in transition.

"We have been defensively solid up to the last couple of weeks where we changed things around a bit, so if we can manage their attacking threat, I think we give ourselves the best opportunity to win the game."

Daly is all too aware of the goalscoring prowess of the talented Afolabi, but is thankful that one of