Thorniewood United boss Jamie Nesbitt expects the West of Scotland League Conference B promotion race to go down to the wire.
But he also says with the league possibly achieving an on-target finish in March, going out of the cup competitions could make for a quiet spring and summer.
Even with that, though, Nesbitt has told his players to approach it one game at a time and see where they end up.
The Viewpark side are fourth in the table, three points behind St Cadoc’s in third and two off Gartcairn in the runners-up slot.
However, they’re only two points ahead of Renfrew in fifth, and Nesbitt doesn’t see much changing soon.
He said: “We’re keeping pace with the teams at the top and I think it’s going to be like that right to the end.
“I don’t think anything is going to be sewn up before the second-last week or the last week.
“Renfrew dropped points at Dalry, which gives us a slight cushion, but we’ve still got hard games coming up.
“We’ve got the top of the league, St Cadoc’s, Greenock, so there are going to be loads of twists and turns, especially with how tight it is.
“There’s not a massive gap between the teams and I don’t see a gap opening up, so we’ve just got to keep ticking games off and hopefully pick up three points each week.”
The Robertson Park club clocked up a 4-0 win over basement side Royal Albert – Nesbitt’s former club – on Saturday thanks to an Ally Small hat-trick and a strike by Darren Bowie.
Nesbitt added: “It was really pleasing to get the three points.
“Conditions were absolutely horrendous, in the first half we had the wind against us so at times we struggled to get out. The second half was a lot better, a lot more convincing.
“We were in control of the game in the second half and we had the wind behind us, so Albert suffered the way we had first half and couldn’t get out.
“We took our chances when they came along, so it was a decent one.”
Next up for ’Wood is a trip to Vale of Leven in the South Challenge Cup fourth round, and Nesbitt expects a tough clash.
He said: “We’ve always had good battles down there, it has always been really competitive.
“There are some big, tasty teams left in that cup, so it would be nice to get through but we won’t look at Vale of Leven as a ‘gimme’ because they’re a decent side. Hopefully we can do the business and see what comes next.”
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