Ryan Delaney believes Cork City can weather his potential summer departure, and that of Premier Division top scorer Sean Maguire, and go on to lift the League of Ireland crown.
Maguire is widely expected to complete a move to England ahead of the new season there, while Delaney's parent club Burton Albion could recall the 20-year-old when his loan spell expires in July.
But, after Delaney contributed two goals to a 4-1 victory over Shamrock Rovers that maintained the Leesiders' unbeaten start to the season, he rejected the idea that the loss of such top talent could derail Cork's season.
"No, I don't think so," Delaney said. "We have a lot of great players in the team that maybe aren't playing as much football as they should, and if the chance arises for them they will step up."
With his immediate future up in the air, the Wexford man is just enjoying being part of a winning set-up.
"It's been remarkable really, just winning games at a young age," he told RTÉ Sport. "There's that winning pressure that you want in sport, you grow up wanting to win games and win things, so we are going in the right direction.
"It's an important couple of weeks, in terms of what's going to happen. It's just up to the two managers and my agent just to see what the story is and what's best for me and for both clubs."
Manager John Caulfield will be hoping to keep both players on Leeside, but says the idea that Cork are too dependent on Maguire will be disproved should the striker depart.
"There's been a lot of talk that we're a one-man team, but there have been quite a few games that Seanie hasn't scored in and other fellas have come up with goals.
"That's the difference this year, that we're getting goals from all over the place, and you need that when Seanie is being so tightly marked. You need other fellas to come up trumps and so far that has happened."
On Delaney's future, the Cork boss acknowledged that Burton manager Nigel Clough would be the one to make the final decision.
"Ultimately it's their call. The bigger picture for us is that it's maybe better for him to keep playing here and get his confidence up, keep improving when he's playing regularly.
"We have Europe coming up and that'd be a massive experience for him. So we'll wait and see. I'm hoping that in the next week or two things will be resolved. At the moment I've no control in that.
"But no matter who comes and goes, we have to keep going and driving on. We've lost players before and kept going, that's the important thing."
Caulfield squad showed its depth as they came from behind at Turner's Cross following Trevor Clarke's first-half opener in the absence of Alan Bennett, Gary Buckley and Steven Beattie.
"As a manager you don't want to be going behind, but it has shown the spirit and determination in the group. They're a fantastic bunch of boys. That's the third time this season we have come back so it shows real character.
"People may say about the sending off, but Seanie has a serious gash on his leg. We spoke all week about being disciplined, it was a game where we needed cool heads and so it proved.
"I'm really pleased because I think Rovers put out their strongest team, we had Bennett, Buckley and Beattie all out of action but the lads that are coming in a playing every week are doing brilliant."
