Padraig Dully

Padriag Dully's career began with Athlone Town in the late eighties, where he showed impressive form. In fact, he's the last player to ever strike a hat-trick for the Midlanders - in November 1989, he netted three times against Galway United.

He was soon off to Shelbourne, where he played arguably the best football of his career. It was certainly the most rewarding period of his footballing travels. In 1992, he won the league with Shels, beating Derry City in the title race, with the FAI Cup arriving a year later. Dully played a full part in the dramatic League play-offs in 1993 as well. Shels finished level on points on top of the table alongside Cork City and Bohemians. The first series of matches failed to produce a conclusive winner, but the second series did, with Cork pipping Bohs into second.

But Dully's career was about to take an unfortunate turn - a serious knee injury almost ended his playing days, in fact he was out of the game for a year. Despite making a full recovery, he was unable to get back into the Shelbourne first team, and moved to Shamrock Rovers in September 1995 for an undisclosed fee.

Rovers had won the League title the year before, but lost their crown in poor fashion, finishing 6th in the table. The 95/96 season was just as unfruitful, and midway through the season manager Ray Treacy was sacked.

This event in February 1996 caused Dully to move to Bohemians, where he scored on his League debut against Dundalk. Having played 11 League matches for Rovers that season, he went on to notch up 11 more with the Dalymount Park outfit.

Padraig was loaned out to Crusaders in Northern Ireland midway through the 96-97 season, where he was expected to stay, but then joined Longford Town on loan. Longford would have signed the dynamic attacking midfielder but for serious money troubles they were experiencing at the time. As a result, he was snapped up by Waterford United manager Tommy Lynch.

Dully's injury jinx was to strike again, in his very first match in blue where he aggrivated his old knee injury while playing against Cobh Ramblers.