EUROPA LEAGUE:DUNDALK FULL-BACK Shaun Kelly says it will be a dream come true when he takes to the pitch for his first European match tonight (6.30pm kick-off) when Dundalk face CS Grevenmacher at the Stade Josey Barthel in Luxembourg.

When Kelly joined Dundalk ahead of the 2009 season, he stated that European football was his aim. However, even he is somewhat taken aback by how quickly it has arrived at Oriel Park.

“When I first came to Dundalk it was about staying in the Premier Division. We did our job last season and this year I think we have kicked on. It’s a new experience for me. It’s a competition that any player wants to play in. We knew at the end of last season there might be a chance to play in Europe because of what was going on at Cork and Derry but now that it has arrived it is really exciting,” he said.

After suffering three league defeats on the spin, the Donegal man admitted it would be nice to take a break from domestic action. “We have lost a few games recently but we’re still only a couple of points off the top. I think this is our bad spell, every team goes through one and what better a place to end it than in Luxembourg. In a sense it will be nice to play against a team we know nothing about. Because we play teams four times in the league, everybody knows each other inside out. Sometimes the games can be dragged out but this one could be very open.

“Grevenmacher are in their close season and we’ve heard the league is very like ours in that there is a huge turnover of players at every club so we don’t know what team they could have out. It’s an unknown but that makes it a bit more exciting.”

The reward for Dundalk, should they progress, is a tie with top Bulgarian side Levski Sofia. “That would be a massive game,” said Kelly. “I’ve been to their stadium before when I was on a pre-season tour with Hearts. It’s a huge ground . . . they are a proper European club. Players would thrive playing in that sort of game but we have to do our jobs against Grevenmacher first.”

Liam Burns (abdominal muscle), Peter Cherrie (metatarsal) and Michael Synnott (knee) will all miss the first leg through injury. Alan Cawley, who experienced European football with St Patrick’s Athletic last season, is expected to partner Stephen Maher and Tom Miller in midfield. JJ Melligan has not made the trip and is expected to return to England, with Cheltenham Town interested in his services.