FAI Cup final countdown/Longford Town v Waterford United: Though just 23 years of age, Waterford United goalkeeper Dan Connor could already spend more time than seems healthy dwelling on the ifs and buts of a career that promised so much but which has only recently really started to deliver.

Like so many others before and since, Connor never seriously questioned the wisdom of moving to England in the hope of making it at the highest level. It's only now, almost a decade after he first left, and as he prepares for Sunday's Carlsberg-sponsored FAI Cup final against Longford Town, he fully appreciates what it was that he had to come back to.

It's almost six years now since the Dubliner made his English league debut for Peterborough in a third division clash with Brighton and did well enough to suggest his future at the club would be bright.

Around London Road they didn't give up on him but a run of serious injuries, including a broken leg and snapped cruciate ligaments, hindered his progress and he only managed to average a couple of first-team games a season over the four or so years that followed.

Eventually, in April of last year, he was offered a contract by Waterford and, frustrated with his inability to nail down a regular first-team place at Peterborough, he decided to take the plunge, negotiating an early release from his contract with an understanding Barry Fry.

Barely 18 months on he has established an impressive reputation for himself within the domestic game.

"I suppose my time in England was difficult for me because I made my debut so young and then had a nightmare with injuries," he says. "But I came home in the right frame of mind and haven't looked back since."

These days the Dubliner could pass for a one-man repatriation scheme as he wonders aloud about the wisdom of so many Irish players warming benches up and down England when they could be playing first-team football with clubs back here.

"If you count all of the lads of different ages up, there's literally hundreds of Irish over there and for the lads who make it that's fantastic. But a lot of the others aren't getting to play and that does them no good at all.

"When I'm asked about my career I have to say that all I really find myself talking about is my time with Waterford. Since I've come back I've been playing 40-odd games a season and Don Givens has given me the opportunity to play under-21 international football. It's been easily the best time of my career and to play in a cup final now will be another high for me."

Connor is one of a small core group of full-time professionals at Waterford, something that is of huge importance to the goalkeeper who doubts if he

could have produced anything like his form of the past two seasons if he had had to come back and get a job.

"For me it's been great," he says, "and the club is constantly moving in the right direction. We're realistic enough to realise we don't have the money of the Shelbournes, Bohemians or Corks but if you look at the table we're the best of the part-time sides and things are constantly improving. The chairman (Ger O'Brien) is putting structures in place to enable us to make further steps forward and I definitely see the day coming in the not too distant future when we'll be in a position to seriously challenge at the top of the table."

Before then there is the opportunity for the club to pick up a first major honour since the their golden era of three decades ago and Connor insists the players are under no illusions.

"Renny (manager Alan Reynolds) keeps telling us about how he's been playing for 12 or 13 years and never played in a cup final before this. He's been hammering it into us that if we let this chance pass us by then it may never come around again.

"Longford will start as favourites, they've been through this before and know all about it but we have 11 lads who die for each other out there. We've a great team spirit and Renny in our ears urging us on the whole time. Nobody thinks it will be easy but there's no doubt amongst our lads we can go up there and win this for ourselves and everybody who has supported this club through what were some difficult times."