Bearing this in mind, East Kilbride and Carrick will be wondering if their disappointing results from last weekend can be overcome or if they have delivered a fatal blow to their ambitions of playing in the National Leagues. East Kilbride drew 20 points each with Annan, whilst Carrick lost at Irvine 19-15.
Having trailed East Kilbride by six points at the start of December, Newton Stewart now find themselves four points ahead, as they stretched their lead at the weekend with a comfortable 49-5 win against Oban. Garnock closed the gap on 2nd & 3rd places with an 18-17 win away at Allan Glens.
Newton Stewart have a game in hand on their challengers, however of their remaining five games, three are against their title contenders, though Carrick and East Kilbride do have to travel to Bladnoch Park.
Had East Kilbride not dropped so many points recently, they’d be looking at their remaining fixtures confident of three wins prior to their trip to Newton Stewart on the last day of the league season, but having not won in their last three outings, things are now a little more tricky to predict.
Three of Carricks four remaining games are against the relegation contenders, so they’ll be looking for three wins from these; Newton Stewart away on 14th January will be more of a challenge. Similar to Carrick, Garnock have three games against relegation contenders and also Newton Stewart.
As current leaders, Newton Stewart are slight favourites for promotion, but there’s plenty of opportunity for the chasing pack to upset things and keep the contest going right to the end of the season.
Just as there’s lots to play for in the title contest, so the same is true in the relegation battle, though we do have to wait on the result of the National 3 contest to see how it will pan out.
If there is only one West team relegated from National 3 (almost certainly Greenock), then the West 1 relegation contest is probably a two horse race with Helensburgh six points behind Oban (Oban also have a game in hand). Both lost heavily at the weekend; Helensburgh away at Kilmarnock and Oban away at Newton Stewart.
If two West teams come down from National 3 (Dalziel currently one place ahead of the dropzone), then at only 10 points ahead of Oban, both Irvine and Kilmarnock are drawn into the contest (both Clubs have played two games more than Oban).
Helensburgh have a challenging set of fixtures that includes home games against both Newton Stewart and Carrick, whilst they have to travel to Oban, Annan and Allan Glens. They need at least a couple of wins to catch Oban, so it’s looking increasingly likely that they’re for the drop to West 2.
Oban also have an awkward set of fixtures (including three of the current top 4 teams), but with home games against Annan, Helensburgh and Kilmarnock they might collect enough points to catch either Kilmarnock or Irvine and get themselves out of the 2nd drop spot.
Irvine and Kilmarnock will both be hoping Oban don’t pick up too many points as their remaining games look to be very challenging. Kilmarnocks games are Carrick (a), Garnock (h), East Kilbride (a), Glens (h) and Oban (a), whilst Irvine have Garnock (a), East Kilbride (h), Glens (a), Annan (a) and Oban (h).
In the relegation battle, a couple of wins will make a huge difference, whilst bonus points will be equally crucial. The other factor that may yet have an impact on the relegation fight is if the Championship Committee decide to deduct points for unfulfilled fixtures - it looks like Helensburgh have failed to fulfill two games, whilst Oban and Kilmarnock look to have one a piece.
Plenty to play for at both top and bottom of West 1, which should see both contests going till the last couple of weeks of the campaign.
December 17th Results
West 1
West 2
West 3
No comments:
Post a Comment