On Soccer: The game may not move quite as swiftly as they say politics does but the steady divergence in the fortunes of St Patrick's Athletic and Cork City over the past few years was all too apparent on Sunday in Inchicore where Damien Richardson's side moved a little closer to the league title thanks to a 2-0 win and Johnny McDonnell's side were left to linger a while longer towards the wrong end of the Premier Division table.

Six years ago the games between these two clubs effectively decided the championship, which the Dubliners finally secured on the last day of the season.

Now the target for McDonnell is a solid mid-table finish, a run in the FAI Cup and an injection of new blood over the winter so that the Inchicore side can start inching the bar up again for 2006.

McDonnell's task has been far from easy since taking over from Eamonn Collins at a point when the club were in the depths of a financial crisis that had its roots in a regime that predated the pair of them.

For a start, the wage bill had to be cut and so important players left the club. Behind the scenes there also appeared to be a good deal of upheaval. And much needed development work at Richmond Park was also delayed because of the lack of the necessary finance.

Now, with former FAI chief executive Bernard O'Byrne having been brought in to oversee things, and the grant aid initially secured a couple of years ago set to be released at last, there is a good deal of confidence around the place that the worst is finally well behind them.

On Sunday you mightn't have guessed it. At the start of the season the club targeted home crowds of more than 2,000 per game but only 1,300 showed up to see the league leaders and a significant proportion of those were visiting supporters.

O'Byrne concedes the poor attendance is an indication of the scale of the work to be done but believes that, having steadied things behind the scenes, the Inchicore outfit are finally in a strong position to start moving forward again.

Within a matter of weeks, he estimates, work on a new stand containing a range of spectator facilities will begin and when the season ends a considerable number of the present squad's contracts will be up allowing McDonnell a good deal of freedom to remodel his squad.

The club employs 11 full-time players plus six part-timers on terms equal to or approaching those of the professionals but there are obvious shortcomings, especially in attack with goals in terribly short supply of late.

Recent attempts to strengthen have failed with, for instance, Bray reportedly seeking €60,000 for Eamon Zayed, a figure that was well beyond McDonnell's budget. Matters were made worse by the departure of Keith Fahey for Drogheda, something many home supporters made clear they did not approve of during Sunday's game.

Afterwards the manager suggested that the player's desire to move on made the transfer inevitable. He was clear, however, that the squad does need new blood and, after Alan Reilly's arrival, indicated he would continue his search for another couple of players, particularly a striker. However, with the transfer window closed his options will be limited for the moment to those players without a club.

His position is, at least, made a little more comfortable in the meantime. Shamrock Rovers, Finn Harps and Waterford United are all in varying states of chaos so relegation really isn't a serious threat.

The club are also fortunate that while many of the fans who flocked to the ground during the late 1990s have, for the moment at least, found other ways of occupying themselves on Friday nights, their core support remains as committed as ever with around 200 signing up in recent weeks to a direct debit scheme that will initially bring in around €50,000 a year.

It will still leave the southsiders turning over around half Shelbourne's €2 million-plus but the hope is that the scheme can be trebled in size during the months ahead, another aimed at business will add considerably to the club's commercial revenue, and a more competitive team next season will restore gate-lost revenues.

The club's fortunes are, of course, closely tied to those of the wider league and O'Byrne insists that considerable changes are required at national level if the game here is finally to achieve its potential.

"In many other walks of life there are people with a product who can't find a market," he says. "We know there's a market out there. We know Shelbourne, for example, can fill Tolka Park for a game against Steaua or nearly fill Lansdowne when Deportivo come here.

"The Dublin public want to come and see live football but none of us are offering them the product they want to pay for - we have to change that."

That change clearly won't be easy to achieve but, having lost their way badly over the past few years, it does seem at least that St Patrick's are moving slowly but steadily in the right direction again.