Uefa Cup First Round: Given the problems it has meeting its more run-of-the-mill responsibilities it seems unlikely the Irish health service will manage to rustle up a chalk board and video link for Damien Richardson tomorrow night.

Rest and recuperation appeared to be some way down the Cork City manager's list of priorities as his side arrived in the Czech capital yesterday with his assistant, Dave Hill, confirming that the starting 11 will be selected by Richardson from a hospital bed back at home.

Hill and the rest of the club officials who arrived back at the same Hotel Praha where the team stayed when beaten here by Prague in 1994 are optimistic about Richardson's chances of being in charge for the second leg in a fortnight's time. In his absence here, though, they must ensure the tie is not effectively decided this time, as it was on that occasion, in the first leg.

Cork will be anxious not to leave themselves too much to do back at home, where their form has been unreliable. Scoring away from home, as they have done in each of the last two rounds, will again be a major target for the Eircom League leaders as they take on a side whose only clean sheet since the summer was in a cup game against fourth-division opposition.

"We'll be talking about the approach a lot between now and the kick-off but I can't imagine anything much changing from the games in Lithuania and Sweden," said Hill yesterday. "Damien may not be here but it will be very much his, very positive, style of play. It's what has brought us a lot of success and it would seem crazy to change things now. To try and play in a more European way would upset us and invite them on. This way we have a chance of dictating things a bit.

"It's a big game and everybody knows what's at stake," he continued. "We've got through two stages of the Uefa Cup and have one more to go if we're to make the really big one. What the players could achieve here would be immense in terms of Irish football history but it's on their doorstep . . . it's well within their grasp."

Alan Bennett, who pulled a hamstring in the home game against Djugardens, is the only player expected to miss the game through injury although the centre back did do some light training last night and hasn't been officially ruled out. Of the current squad only Billy Woods was involved in the 6-0 aggregate defeat 11 years ago.

Hungry for success and a growing belief amongst this young group of player that they can achieve a significant breakthrough at this level will fire them on even against a club that has made the last eight of a European competition three times and the semi-finals once since they last came face to face with City.

Left back Danny Murphy, like several of his team-mates, views tomorrow's game as about the biggest of his career to date, with Prague marking another stage on the 22-year-old's journey back from football's wilderness.

Born and bred in south London, the defender showed promise as a teenager at West Ham which he delivered on for a spell at QPR but after almost a season of first-team football his career embarked on a downward spiral and nearly ended altogether after a spell with Conference outfit Margate.

"It was the first time I'd been a part-timer and I got a job as a scaffolder," he recalls. "I only lasted two weeks at it but it was a real wake-up call. It reminded me just how good I'd had it all that time as a full-time footballer. After that I realised I had to turn things around."

He had been thinking of giving up the game, but after his father, Tommy, whose family came from Cork, persuaded then City manager Pat Dolan to give Danny a trial, things finally started to look up.

"I loved it from the minute I got here," says Murphy, who used to holiday as a child with his family in Kinsale. "It was the best thing I ever did because it got me away from certain things in London and gave me the chance to start again."

It's an opportunity he has seized with both hands. Regarded by many as the best left back in the league, Murphy has been a key figure for Cork and his performances in Europe so far have reinforced his growing reputation. Personal recognition continues to elude him - team-mate and friend Liam Kearney, with whom he bought a house after moving to Ireland, twice pipping him to league player-of-the-month awards.

The value of his input, like his confidence in the team's ability to deliver, is huge. "We know that as a club Cork have probably underachieved over the years but we're a young side and we know that we can go forward and win things," he says. Before that, they have two more games to show that they are now leading the way in Europe too. Neither he nor anyone else in the camp believes it will be easy. Crucially, however, nobody believes it is impossible either.

Slavia Prague v Cork City Strahov Stadium, tomorrow On: RTÉ 2 (kick-off 7.0)