Get Finn Harps manager Charlie McGeever talking about how far the club has come over the past couple of years and there's little telling where the conversation will take you. McGeever's first spell managing the club came when he was in his early 20s after his own playing days had ended through injury, and just about everything that has happened in the intervening 15 years or so gets a mention.

Everybody gets a share of the credit, from the directors whose belief, as well as cash, in Harps has been instrumental in getting them to this weekend's Harp Lager FAI Cup final, to the supporters, to the back room staff "who have been superb here for a few years now".

When it comes to talking about the players at the club, though, one name keeps cropping up whenever McGeever wants to give a pointer to where the club is going. "Just look at Declan Boyle," he says of his commanding central defender and captain. "He won things at Sligo, went to one of the biggest clubs in Europe (Celtic), came back to Derry where he won things again, and now he has come here because he wants to do more with his career.

"The fact that Declan wanted to come here at this stage in his career shows how far this club has come in a few seasons, and it's players like him that are capable of moving the club on again to the next stage in its development."

It's not the sort of talk you'd get out of Boyle himself. The quietly spoken 24-year-old from Killybegs was an outstanding gaelic footballing prospect when in the Donegal minors, and in fact proved he was still a cut above the rest when, while on a break from Glasgow a couple of years back, came on for his town's club side and produced the vital points that helped them to the county championship. As a soccer player he is rated just as highly by those who have played with him or, indeed, managed him, although by his own admission, and in no small part due to injury, he never reached his potential in his time with Celtic. "A lot of players have come back from that sort of thing with their confidence gone and they disappear," says McGeever. "But Declan's a different sort of character. He came back to a situation at Derry that was entirely unacceptable (Boyle was played out of position for a season and fell out rather gloriously with then City manager Felix Healy), but he's come out of it at the other end and shown everybody that he's still a tremendous talent."

Sitting across the room from the Harps manager as he speaks, Boyle sits and listens with nothing more than the slightest hint of a smile. He's heard it all before, of course, but it has little effect on him. When asked about how things have gone for him since winning a cup winners medal with Sligo five years ago, he shrugs.

Celtic, he says, was an enjoyable experience and one he will always remember fondly, even if he never quite did make it in the way that so many back at home expected. Although he won a championship medal with Derry City, his time with them was messier. He managed to turn the situation to his own advantage, getting the better of Healy in the end to join Harps on what were essentially his terms.

"At the time Charlie told me what they were going to do and I was impressed," he recalls. "And since then players like Donal O'Brien have come in and Gavin Dykes and Tom Mohan have been signed. Slowly but surely every piece of the jigsaw has been fitting into place until, I think when you look at it now, there's quality all around the squad."

There is, he admits, still a little way to go before Harps can challenge for the title against this season's top two, "but we've come an awful long way in only three years really.

"It's only three years since the club came up, and so to end up with a top four finish is a great achievement in itself," he says.

"I think reaching the cup final is the icing on the cake for this season and hopefully, after its over, we can get those final pieces into place so that we can go on and challenge for the league next season, because that's what everybody wants for the club."

Having been reunited with Gavin Dykes (a close personal friend away from the game) has helped his football he says, and he points to the fact that he has missed only two of the club's matches over the past two seasons as a sign of just how contented he is with his game after what were some pretty turbulent years.

His manager's satisfaction with the pairing has been reflected all season in his claims that he has more or less the best defence in the country with Pascal Vaudequin, Jonathon Minnock, and the more recently recruited Brian McKenna all getting a share of the credit too.

That is the grounding on Sunday on which Harps will look to build their first cup triumph in a quarter of a century and, at its heart, Boyle will probably be marking himself out again as the sort of player who is capable of making a decisive contribution in Irish football's very biggest annual occasion.