Shamrock Rovers have confirmed the capture of Sean Kavanagh from under the noses of SSE Airtricity League rivals Derry City.
The 24-year-old left-back, who can also play on either wing or in central midfield, goes straight into the squad for the Dundalk match this weekend pending international clearance.
Candystripes boss Kenny Shiels told the Derry Journal last night that Kavanagh had been training with them since last week but then informed him yesterday morning of his decision to opt for the Tallaght club.
Kavanagh has confirmed today that he got a call from Rovers in an attempt to persuade him to move back to the capital.
""I'm delighted to be here," said Kavanagh. "It's the biggest club in Ireland so as soon as it comes knocking it's hard to say no. I'm looking forward to getting started. Stephen McPhail and Stephen Bradley rang me and it came about quite quickly over the weekend to get it done for today.
"I was really close to signing for Derry, I was just waiting for my deal to get sorted at Fulham. But Rovers came knocking and I'm a Dublin boy. It's tough to turn down Rovers.
I loved it at Fulham. I was in the academy when Damien Duff was there and he was always good to me. I'm looking forward to catching up with him."
Kavanagh joined the Fulham academy from Belvedere back in 2011 and went on to make his debut for the Londoners in 2014.
He made 27 appearances in all for the Championship club and also had loan spells with Mansfield Town and Hartlepool.
"I'm looking to play football here and enjoy it and hopefully win things," said Kavanagh who is no stranger to Tallaght Stadium. "I saw Rovers play a couple of times last year, I saw the derby when Brandon Miele scored the winner. From training with the lads you can see they're all good players and they like to play the same type of football as me. That was a big part of coming here, when the gaffer spoke to me about it. You know you're coming into a good team when there's competition for places and that'll drive me on. Tallaght is one of the best stadiums in the league and there'll be a lot of fans there on Friday. I know a couple of Rovers fans myself and they're looking forward to the first home game as well."
Sean Kavanagh pictured with Shamrock Rovers head coach Stephen Bradley - shamrockrovers.ie
Bradley confirmed that he was tipped off about his signing a while back.
"Damien Duff was with Sean at Fulham and made me well aware of him, about a year ago, what type of player and character he was. He said if he became available we should definitely try and get him so we just kept tabs on him. When we knew he was agreeing to leave Fulham we made contact. He's been training at Derry and I know they liked him but once we spoke to him he said there's only one place he wanted to play. It was pretty straight forward, we met with him and it was agreed within two or three hours.
Bradley feels Kavanagh's delivery of the ball into the box with his left foot is one of his best qualities and believes he can turn up the heat on a couple of his more established players.
"He's in competition with Trevor Clarke and Luke Byrne and he can play up above them as well. You saw at the weekend that Ally Gilchrist was able to slot in at left-back, I think we have a number of players that can move into two or three positions fairly comfortably. Sean can play full-back and with the quality in his left foot he's really attacking minded, he can play either wing."
